


and if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. (discontinued)

by sootforbrains



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Sleepy Bois Inc
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sootforbrains/pseuds/sootforbrains
Summary: Veteran Phil heads a group of monster Hunters stationed in a small town; with him are a hunting enthusiast called Technoblade, an orphan named Wilbur, and a newcomer named Tommy. The four are used to a way of life; they are used to tracking, hunting, killing, repeat.-Eret is a vampire who is tired of hiding from Hunters who want his head for simply being what he is; so he packs up his little brother Tubbo, his werewolf friend Fundy, and their witch friend Niki, and moves them all to a seemingly inconspicuous small town; next door to a seemingly innocent (if not rather chaotic) father and his three sons.And when the two groups begin to mingle--unbeknownst of the others' origins--there are things that begin to complicate themselves. For relationships are never simple, even when it comes to sharp teeth and swords.
Comments: 30
Kudos: 442





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this AU is just for fun! There will be no heavy gore, no shipping (because that's weird and gross), etc.! If you feel like I've crossed a line, please, by all means, message me! Hope you enjoy :)

_ BEFORE _

Phil crossed an arm over his chest and began to county to twenty.

It was a tactic he'd learned in his early days at the Academy, a strategy Kristin had so graciously provided for him to accommodate for the ropes of stress and fear that had begun to bound his missions. Close your eyes if it's safe (in this case, it was not safe); focus on your breathing; count to twenty. 

Take a step back from the task at hand.

The noise of the river was lodged in his eardrums, pounding against his already-throbbing head. When he opened his eyes, he could see it twisting before him, ropes of water gushing and gurgling over a sharp outcropping of rocks, down and around the knife-sharp points of earth, down the mountain, never-ending. It would have been breathtaking under different circumstances--oh, but such is the nature of most things, when you are a Hunter of evil. 

His knees squelched in the damp moss as he repositioned himself, shifting his gaze from the blistering river to his partner, whose unconscious form was still sprawled before him. Phil had done his best to fix up the very worst of the wounds; the werewolf had certainly done its damage. But his partner's eyes remained closed, his psyche remained dormant, and Phil was doing his best not to lose hold of his calm. 

Technoblade was a newer recruit, and one of the Academy's latest prizes to place upon their idealistic pedestal; for Techno was by far one of the most skilled recruits Phil had ever seen, especially for his age. There were ways a man could know his way around a sword, and Techno appeared to be intimate with all of them, a practical partner with his blade like the two were intertwined in a romance. Phil had never seen such skill, such cunning tactical fighting when it came to the slaughtering of monsters.

When Phil had been assigned to keep Techno company on this mission, he'd felt a pit form in the depths of his stomach; for he was both ecstatic to see the new recruit at work, and also horrified at the velocity of the mission itself. A rural, feral werewolf was never something you wanted to see on the mission briefs; a remote location was even worse, because help was scarce. Not that Phil had been all that worried about their safety; as much as he hated to admit it, he had a bit of an ego of his own, built up by years of fighting through and for the Academy. He understood why the two of them had been chosen for this mission: they were simply the best options available.

But as Phil knelt on the ground before Techno, he felt a creeping sort of disbelief wash over him. The new recruit had been a bit of a legend, and had proved himself in their face-off with the werewolf. The fight had been good, Phil thought. But alas: humans weren't gods, and sometimes evil prevailed.

"Come on," Phil whispered. There was a pulse in Techno still, he knew it. There simply had to be. He'd dragged him by his arms out of the river, and it had been a miracle he'd been able to get that far. He needed his partner to pull through. He needed him.

For if he didn't, what was there to say about Phil? 

It would be like his first year all over again.

Something seemed to twitch in Techno's dormant chest; Phil jerked, his hope pounding within him. He inched forward; his partner's hair--dyed an odd shade of light pink, long and shaggy around his face--was plastered to his forehead, his clothes soggy with the river. He certainly resembled a corpse, but--

His hand twitched, ever so slightly.

"Jesus fuck, man." Phil's relief was intense, imminent, all-encompassing, and as Techno's eyelids fluttered--as he began to reenter consciousness like a baby from the womb--Phil felt a smile spread his lips. 

Techno began to spasm for a moment, jerking and coughing up all of the water that had infiltrated his lungs while he'd tumbled into the river. Phil let him do it, waiting just a fraction of a moment, before saying, "Well, look who's decided to escape death."

Techno's head whipped around to look at Phil, and for a split second, his eyes flashed with alarm, unrecognition. But then they settled, as they took in Phil's own, battered form, the blood on his own shirt. The blade sheathed in his own belt, and the scenery of the mountains around them. And as if remembering, Techno deflated. "We lost, didn't we?" 

His eyes were wide, his lips taut. Phil felt a strange urge to lie to him, to say that he'd ended up killing the werewolf. But instead, he said, "I'm afraid we did, soldier."

Techno nodded, head bobbing slowly up and down. His hand drifted to his ruined torso. 

"I wouldn't touch anything there just yet," Phil warned quickly. "I had to do some serious damage control."

Techno grimaced at that, and let his hand flutter back to his side. He seemed to exude disappointment, and Phil understood. He understood what feeling that failure felt like. 

There was a moment of silence, before Phil said, "There will be other werewolves."

"Will there?" Techno was suddenly fierce, eyes flashing. Phil recoiled slightly, taken aback by the outburst, and Techno quickly seemed to realize that he'd been harsh, that his words were sharp with malice. Settling, he added, softer, "I've never lost a fight before, Phil."

"I know." Compelled by something that resembled sympathy, Phil reached forward and grasped Techno's sword, which was draped on the ground beside his belt. He picked it up, and held it up so that the steel of the blade reflected the gold of the setting sun. "But we've all got to have a first."

Techno gazed at his sword with an emptiness in his eyes, and Phil couldn't tell if it was from physical fatigue or that crushing disappointment. Phil turned the sword; flecks of gold alighted on Techno's cheek, giving him celestial freckles. "You're going places, Techno, but there's going to be bumps on the road."

"Have you had many bumps in your road?" Techno was still looking at the sword, still mesmerized by the refracting light.

Phil smiled bitterly. "I've had bumps, and I've had full-on fuckin wrecks." 

This pulled a small grin out of Techno. It was strange, to see something so full of light upon the scarred face of someone so fierce. 

Phil offered forth his hand. "Shall we get home, then?"

\---

_ NOW _

Phil let the car door slam shut behind him with a thump; the sun was high in the sky, terribly bright, and he had to hold up a hand to shield his eyes from the frightening glare. 

Tommy, eager as he always was, had already placed himself on the house's front lawn, staring up at it with a furrowed expression--his hair was mussed from leaning his head against the backseat's window, and he ran a hand through it now, uncertain.

"What's the matter?" Phil called, taking a step forward onto the lawn beside the kid, and turned his own gaze upon the house.

And understood why Tommy was hesitant, all of a sudden.

"It's....really somethin'." Tommy let out a burst of a half-chcukle, and looked to Phil with that amused glint in his eye. 

And it was something: the chipping paint, the sagging wood of the front porch, the sheer portrayal of age that was evident within the cracks of the thing; it was certainly not the Academy's best work. 

"It sort of looks like a murder shack." This was Wilbur, ever the optimist, who had sidled up next to Tommy, arms crossed over his thin sweater. His own expression reflected Tommy's, a sort of cross between amused and utterly disgusted. "We're going to have a grand old time in a place like that."

"Aw, come on." Phil turned to face the two boys, doing his best to paint a smile over his own, uncertain features. "At least we've got a house."

"We've got a shelter," said Tommy.

"We've got a _house_ that the Academy is paying for. Alright? So...try and be a little optimistic here?" This he directed at Wilbur, who--beneath his beanie--was starting to wear a scowl like a favorite hoodie. "Please?"

"Phil's right," Techno--pulling himself up and out of the passenger seat of Phil's rented car--called, coming ever so heroically to Phil's defense. Despite the cold, his hair was pulled into a bun, still dyed that same shade of dusky pink--it hadn't changed in the five years he and Phil had been partners, and Phil doubted it ever would. He approached the yard, flashing the house a distasteful look. "We should be.....well, I'm not sure if _grateful_ is the right word, but we should be....you know. Accepting."

At that, Tommy let out a laugh. "What, you think we're gonna hurt the house's feelings?"

"You never know, Tommy. It could be self-conscious about its shingles." Techno's deadpan was something to behold; his eye held not a glint of humor as he approached the front porch, placed a cautious boot on the steps. "Seems solid enough, I think."

"Jesus, it's-it's not that bad." Phil shook his head--he was fond of his partners, but as the resident veteran, it sometimes felt as if he were wrangling children. "I'm sure we're going to survive."

"What if the monsters we're supposed to kill _are_ the house?" This came from Wilbur, who's lips were twisted in a funky little grin. "What if we're walking right into a trap?"

"Yeah, Wil's got a point." Tommy's eyes were wide with exaggeration; Techno turned, facing them on the front porch. "What if we're walking into a trap, Phil?"

"Oh, shut up." Phil did his best to hide his smile (for it would only encourage them) as he started toward Techno, trying his own luck with the admittedly unsteady-looking front steps. 

Techno shot him a furtive look. "Did we do something to get on an Academy blacklist? Be honest with me, here."

At this, Phil merely shrugged, letting out a depleted sigh. "Frankly, I think they're just getting lazy with us."

Tommy and Wilbur started toward them now, and Phil turned to address them. "Ready to go in and see our home for the next several months?"

He received no response from his onlooking crowd, so he simply groped in the pocket of his jeans until he found the key the Headmaster had given him before they'd departed. He inserted it gingerly into the rusted lock, and opened the door.

\----

It became evident very quickly that the dilapidated exterior was a ruse.

The inside of the place told a very different story than the chipping paint and dangling shingles; for the interior was freshly furnished, freshly painted, freshly nuanced with technology. It was the wolf in sheep's clothing; parading around as a shack when in reality, it was something far more accommodating.

"See, I was worried," said Techno, as he stood in the almost-suspiciously clean living area, "that they'd forgotten I was their best killer."

Phil had to hand it to the Academy: they made due on their promises.

The goal for the four of them--four skilled hunters, one a veteran, one a prodigy, one a supernatural expert, and one who was far too skilled for his young age--was to take residence in this small, inconspicious town. They were to act as if they belonged, as if they were simply a father and his four sons (or something of the sort, the Headmaster hadn't been terribly specific) just down for a visit to see the scenic mountains and glorious outcroppings of nature. 

"They want us to scout it out down there," Wilbur had said in the briefing--he was the one in charge of the file, for he was the one usually trusted with the specifics of each mission. "There's been a recent surge of mysterious disappearances, people going into the woods and never coming back out, you know, typical stuff."

And so that was the goal--act as normal as possible while simultaneously eradicating any sort of supernatural activity they managed to stumble upon.

The problem was, normal was an interesting word for the four of them.

"Phil, you've got a bit of an issue, mate." Tommy came tumbling down the steps from the second-floor, eyes wild as he trained them on Phil, who was leaning against the wall of the foyer--Wilbur and Techno were hunched together in the living room, holding some sort of private conversation about weaponry setup. 

"What is it now?" Phil, who had been looking at his cell phone (checking to see if there were any updates from the headmaster, or anything regarding their peculiar assignment), glanced up with minimal alarm. Tommy tended to lean on the side of a dramatist. 

"There's only three bedrooms up there." Tommy wiggled his eyebrows at Phil. "Looks like you and Techno are sharing."

"Oh, no. No, no, no," said Phil, and at the same time, Techno's head snapped upward and he flashed Tommy an almost deadly glare. 

"I think you and Wil are going to be the ones sharing the room," Phil said quickly, and this time, it was Wilbur's head that snapped up, manning the gun of a deadly glare. 

"You're fucking joking. I'm not sharing a room with him." Wilbur shook his head firmly, and at the same time, Tommy burst out with, "You couldn't _pay_ me to sleep in a room with Wil."

"The fuck do you mean he couldn't pay you?" Wilbur left Techno's side and approached Tommy, eyes alight with irritation. 

"I mean, you couldn't pay me to share a room with you. Are you daft?" Tommy held his ground on the steps, daring Wilbur to draw nearer.

"You couldn't offer me _eternal life_ to share a room with you."

"Do you always have to be so dramatic?"

"Do you always have to be so annoying?"

Phil met eyes with Techno across the room; Wilbur and Tommy's bickering was beginning to flood the room. Amusement tugged at Techno's lips, and in turn, tugged at Phil's as well. There was a fondness amongst the four of them, but it was sure to be a difficult couple of months. But Phil felt a sudden surge of fondness toward the three younger boys. He'd been doing his best to guide them, to be that sensai. And this mission; it was the epitome of his fatherly role. 

But working together as Hunters was one thing.

Living together as a family was another thing entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight TW for blood and animal death in this chapter, but no gore or descriptions of gore.

_BEFORE_

Eret had always hated his hands.

They had always been fumbling, clumsy. Betraying him with actions of embarrassing velocity; knocking over an expensive vase at a party, catching a tripping woman in the wrong place. They had always been his biggest enemy, he felt. Always reaching, never touching.

And when they were covered in blood, it seemed that they were simply mocking him.

Sighing, he stood, turning away from the body of the dog he'd left in the alleyway, yanking his hood over his head and walking briskly away. He had to move quickly, for the sun was just about to rise, and with it would come the start of the day. 

Tubbo would be out of bed soon.

Eret wound speedily through the twists and turns of his urban neighborhood, heading toward the apartment he shared with his little brother. Above him, the sky was a pulsating gray. He could sense the movement in the apartment buildings he passed; alarm clocks going off, businessman pulling on their suits and zipping up their briefcases. Activity amongst the living. 

Eret reached his own apartment complex two minutes before six. He pulled open the door and crossed toward the elevators, keeping his head bowed carefully down toward the floor, hiding his hands in his pockets and his bloodied lips beneath the hood. 

The receptionist at the desk didn't even acknowledge him--vocally, at least. It seemed she was tired, and that was alright by Eret.

He made it to the door of his apartment without turning any heads (not that there were any heads to turn), and he let out a shaky exhale of relief. He'd cut it close this morning, hadn't awoken to the alarm he'd set for three, and instead had been jolted awake at five by the aching hunger in his gut. It was a hunger that liked to claw, to cut up his insides until he was satiated.

But of course, satisfying that monster of a hunger was never an easy task.

He pulled open the door to the apartment and was relieved to find that all the lights were still out, the activity within still dormant. Tubbo was still in bed, then. Still asleep, hopefully still dreaming of innocent things.

Eret made a beeline for the tiny bathroom situated in the hall, flipped on the light, and faced himself in the mirror. He looked a fright; lips reddened by the dog's blood (who knew it stained so completely?) hair tousled and hanging in his eyes. He opened his mouth, revealed his teeth--cautiously let out his fangs. Something twisted in his gut, but it wasn't fear. It wasn't something that liked to dress itself as pride, but what was it really? That primal urge that had embodied him when he'd gotten turned. That had to be what it was.

He'd been like this for weeks now, perhaps even a month, but he wasn't sure it had been that long. He'd gotten used to the killing frighteningly quick, and had gotten good at it, too. Although, he never fed on people. That was something he'd never forgive himself for.

Reaching toward the sink, he flipped on the faucet and began to scrub his hands under the frigid water.

"Eret?"

Eret's veins went icy with fear.

He turned slowly to see Tubbo's small frame standing in the doorway, eyes wide, reflecting the light of the bathroom. He was clutching a mug of something hot and steamy, still in his pajamas. 

There was no hiding the blood. It was everywhere, so completely staining that there was no use in trying.

Eret reached up and removed the hood from his head. 

The two brothers stood and stared at each other for a moment which stretched itself across eternity. They'd been on their own for two years now, alone in this apartment; Tubbo in school, Eret in university. Eret the protector. 

"Tubbo." Eret's voice was low, rusty. "I can explain--"

But Tubbo's brow merely crinkled slightly. "You can explain?"

"I can, if you'd just--"

"Were you going to tell me that you killed people? Or was I supposed to find out in a news story?" Tubbo's expression was neutral, but his tone was ablaze. It scared Eret; he'd never seen him so calmly furious.

"I don't kill people. This isn't...this isn't human blood." Eret held out his hands; Tubbo flinched. "It's..." He paused, considering, then decided, _fuck it_. "Do you know what a vampire is?"

And at that, Tubbo's lip quirked upward, revealing a strange expression hidden behind his calm neutrality. "You're telling me you're a vampire?"

"I know it sounds stupid but I'm not crazy, I was downtown a couple of weeks ago--"

"Eret." Tubbo's lips peeled backward into a full smirk. "I believe you. That's fucking _awesome_."

Eret's mind reeled with sudden confusion; he'd always believed if Tubbo ever discovered the nature of this side of him, he'd be terrified. Would run away, even. But not this....this enthusiasm. 

"Show me your fangs." Tubbo clutched his mug between his palms, and leaned against the doorframe, interest prickling at his eyes. They'd retained their usual sparkle, and that, at least, was comforting.

Eret shifted. "I...are you sure you're--"

"I want to see them."

Eret sighed, hesitated, then opened his mouth and let out the fangs, watching Tubbo carefully for a reaction of any kind.

But Tubbo only smiled again. "Cool," he breathed, and reached a finger forward to touch them.

Eret withdrew quickly. "Hey, hey. Careful."

"How come I can see you in the mirror?"

"I....I don't know."

"Is that why we haven't been having spaghetti night lately? You can't have garlic?"

"Tubbo-"

"Will you live forever?" At this, Tubbo's expression fell a bit. He glanced down at his mug, seemingly unable to look at Eret any longer. 

"I....don't know." And it was honest; Eret didn't know. He had seen his power of healing--a cut that had closed itself before his very eyes, burns that dissolved like liquid--but he didn't know if his aging had halted as well. It wasn't like he'd been given a handbook.

There came another moment of silence, this one heavier than the first, practically soggy with things unsaid. Because the fact of the matter was, if Eret was immortal, he'd be forced to watch Tubbo grow old without him, watch him marry, have kids. 

Die.

"Turn me." Tubbo's head snapped upward suddenly, eyes wild with the idea. "Bite me. Turn me into one."

Eret blinked, his stomach growing cold. "Tubbo--no, I'm not gonna do that. I don't want you to--"

"But I do." Tubbo's tone was low. Firm. "I don't want to grow old without you."

Eret bit his lip, uncertain. He thought about the dead dog in the alleyway, the thought of his younger brother with fangs like his own. The thought of turning him into something that was no longer innocent, tainting him in such a permanent way.

But then he thought about spending immortality alone.

He thought about the sheer velocity of the word: _forever_. And he thought about how daunting it would be on his own.

"Eret." Tubbo set his mug on the bathroom counter, clasped his hands together. "Eret, please. I don't want you to do this alone."

And so Eret sighed, wiped his lip on the back of his hoodie sleeve.

"Alright." He regarded Tubbo cautiously. "But you're gonna owe me, big time."

\---

_ NOW _

"Well, you certainly chose a humble abode."

"Shut up, Fundy." Eret tossed a lazy look toward his friend in the passenger seat. They were in a strange-looking neighborhood, that's for sure; but it had been the most ideal location, the most inconspicuous and useful for their needs. 

Eret pulled into the driveway and slid his sunglasses up on top of his head. In the rearview, he could see Niki and Tubbo asleep together in the backseat, an ear bud in one of each of their ears. 

Amused, he said to Fundy, "You mind waking them up for me?"

"Oh, always my pleasure." Fundy smirked, his sharp teeth glinting, before turning and yelling, "Fire, that car's on fire, get out, quick!"

Tubbo jerked upward, eyes snapping open and glancing fervently about; a tiny squeak of terror escaped his mouth. Niki, however, opened her eyes slowly, and immediately glared at Fundy.

"Nice try, dickhead." She removed the ear bud from her ear and handed it to Tubbo, who was recovering from his fright. Eret's laughter made his stomach clench with pain, and Niki turned her glimmering gaze onto him. "Are we here?" Her eyes shifted upward, and she leaned forward, looking steadily out the windshield. "Is this....it?"

"It's not what it looks like," Eret tried to assure her, and he removed the keys from the ignition. "It's _ideal_. Look, we're near a little patch of woods for Mr. Wolf over here--" He gestured to Fundy, who was still wearing an expression of disdain like a mask. "--and for me and Tubbo to hunt in. And it's got a nice, spacious attic where Niki can set up her....you know. Her witchy stuff." 

"My witchy stuff," mused Niki, but her brow was furrowed as she took in the splintered boards of the house, the sagging front porch. "I guess it's....cute. It's like a little woodland cottage." She shot Eret a grateful look. "I love it."

"I knew you would." Eret beamed at her as he opened his door and stepped out into the driveway.

"Of course _she_ loves it," growled Fundy, getting out on his own side and crossing his arms over his jacketed chest. He'd taken a nap on the way up, and it had evidently splintered his mood into several different pieces. 

Tubbo approached Eret, arms crossed against his too-big button-down, staring up at the house. "I like it," he said, brightly, and beamed up at his brother. 

Eret gazed back, and smiled. Even after the years they'd spent hunting together, Tubbo had never lost that innocent eagerness that always seemed to be the light behind his eyes. 

"Shall we go in?" Eret gestured toward the house, and directed this at Fundy, who was kicking at loose rocks in the driveway.

"I say we shall." Niki started forward, with a playful jab at Fundy's arm. "Come on, Tubbo. Let's go see that attic."

\-----

It had been an incident in the city that had driven Eret out of hiding.

Hunters had been around for as long as Eret could remember being a vampire, more evident as his time being among the shadow world progressed. They always seemed to be just at the edges of his consciousness, always lurking but never seeming to strike. Eret had had friends--acquaintances, really, other vampires he'd met in alleyways and dark corners of streets--disappear mysteriously; and it always led back to the Hunters and their vendetta against the unnatural.

Eret understood them; he really did. There were bad monsters out there, vampires who took far too much joy in killing, werewolves who purposefully charged into neighborhoods to rampage. And so he figured if he kept himself and Tubbo out of the spotlight--by never murdering, never harming, never doing anything that strayed outside of his own morals--that it would keep them safely hidden. Fundy and Niki had figured the same thing; the group had been friends for around a year now, lumped together like a band of misfits. 

They minded their business.

And the humans minded theirs.

But two nights ago, Eret had awoken to a pounding at the door, and upon wrenching it open he'd found a man clad in black on the step, face stony, eyes hard as rock. 

He'd been clutching a briefcase in one hand--a strange contrast to the simplicity of his outfit.

And at his hilt had been a carefully-sheathed sword. 

"Do you know where your neighbor Mr. Ruthers was last night?" The man's voice had been horribly monotonous, raking at Eret's ears like nails.

Eret had shaken his head, baffled by the pure concept that a Hunter was at his doorstep; the sword was what had given it away. No police officer carried around a sword at his hip like some sort of Musketeer. "No, sir, sorry, I was....I wasn't...I don't know. We don't really--"

"That's quite alright. Have a nice night, sir." And just like that, the man was walking away, back down the hallway, hand pressed gently to the hilt of his sword.

Toward Mr. Ruthers' apartment.

Eret had closed the door slowly, calmly, and then rushed into Tubbo's bedroom, flipping on the light, shaking him awake with a vicious velocity. 

"Pack your bags," Eret hissed, as Tubbo groaned sleepily. "Pack them quickly. We've got to go."

And from there he'd rushed into the living room to call Niki, who was probably up, considering her sleep schedule was littered with alarms set on her phone so that she could wake up and check on potions; her late-night brewing had come in handy more times than he would like to admit.

"I can get Fundy," Niki had said, after a minute of considering Eret's offer. "I'd have to....I mean, I don't know how I can just up and _leave_ , I've got to let my landlord know, and I--"

"Call her up after you hang up with me. We've got to go as soon as possible." Eret was pacing around the living room, thoughts of poor Mr. Ruthers (what kind of monster had the poor guy been, anyway? How had they never interacted before?) racing wildly through his head. "I can't stay here any longer. This place has far too many people. Far too many opportunities for things to go wrong."

Niki sighed, on the other end. "Well, update me in the morning. I've got some phone calls to make, I guess."

And with that, she'd hung up.

Now, in this new place--this new town--Eret stared blissfully out of his bedroom window and into the woods which bordered his backyard. Mountains rose quietly in the distance, promising wilderness. Promising privacy. 

Except for the houses which surrounded them in the neighborhood. But that could be dealt with accordingly. 

Behind him, Fundy heaved his suitcase onto his bed and started to unzip it. It was a three-bedroom house; Eret had been generous and given Tubbo his own room. Niki's arrangement had gone unspoken; it was evident that she was getting her own room, whether they liked it or not. 

"Are you sure this was a good idea?"

Eret turned to Fundy, who was frantically brushing his hair out of his eyes, reaching in and pulling out folded shirts from the inside of his suitcase. He glanced up at Eret briefly. 

"What do you mean?"

Fundy shrugged. "I mean, we left so suddenly. We _arrived_ so suddenly. Do you really think we'll be able to fly under the radar here as well as anywhere else?"

Eret nodded firmly. "It's better than the city."

From upstairs came a sizable-sounding thump; it seemed Niki was settling in nicely.

To this, Fundy said nothing. He was the sort to keep these thoughts to himself. 

"I'll have to change tomorrow," he said, after a moment, as Eret turned back to look out the window again.

"Already?"

"Yeah. I guess it'll be.....nicer. Closer to home." Fundy's voice was tinged with a darkness that Eret couldn't quite place.

He turned to face his friend again, and tried to give him an easy smile. For home was what this was going to be, if not more.

They'd make it work.


	3. Chapter 3

_ BEFORE _

He was at the bottom of the ravine again. 

Limbs twisted unnaturally, face turned toward the sky (which was a blistering color of orange, fiery as the sun which painted it).

He'd taken quite a fall.

He winced, but was unable to move. There was no pain, only a strange numbness that he could only describe as the feeling of oncoming death.

He braced himself, preparing accordingly.

And then, a shadow--

"Tommy."

Someone grasped his shoulders and shook him violently, and he tumbled upward, spiraling out of the dream and snapping to consciousness quite abruptly. Around him, the walls of his dorm popped into place, tacked up with posters and tapestries and bulbed lights. A familiar prison cell, wildly different from the walls of the ravine.

Before him--with both hands wrapped around the bones of Tommy's shoulders--was Deo, already dressed for the day in his Academy uniform, brow creased with concern. Tommy let his gaze focus in on his roommate, and fumbled desperately around in his mind for the light switch that would flip him up and out of drowsiness. 

"What?" he found himself mumbling, distressed at Deo's expression. "What is it?"

"You were doing it again." Deo, slowly, took a step back, and Tommy was able to see that he'd kicked the sheets of his bed down into a knotted rope. His neck, he found, was slick with sweat, and his shirt clung to his skin like a wretched parasite. 

"Oh." Tommy shriveled, and ran a shaky hand through his hair. He glanced at the clock on his bedside--the only piece of furniture which separated his bed and Deo's bed in the closet of a room. The red numbers flashed and glowed, reading 5:02. 

They had to be moving by six; breakfast was served at 6:15. 

Deo sighed, and turned, heading toward the kitchenette situated in the corner--which was really nothing more than a square box of tile with a table in the center--and settling against the counter, picking up his steaming mug of coffee. He regarded Tommy with a familiar look; it was an expression Tommy was used to seeing. 

Sighing, Tommy swung his legs to the side and stood, stretching his arms over his head and then heading to the wardrobe situated at the foot of his bed. 

"Was it bad?" he said, fingers brushing his Academy uniform (which was really nothing more than a darkish-plum colored blazer and black trousers, a rather impractical combination for an Academy that specialized in training monster killers). He took care not to look at Deo, for he knew his friend would only give him that awful, sympathetic gaze that he couldn't stand.

"It wasn't....the worst," Deo said, after a moment's hesitation. "You were pretty loud, though."

_Shit_. Tommy crossed the room toward the small hallway that branched off into an even tinier bathroom. Reaching into the shower, he flipped on the faucet, the sound of the water spilling over into the tub a welcome distraction from the heavy silence between him and Deo. It was strange; they'd been roommates--friends--for two years, ever since Tommy had been ungraciously dumped at the Academy for a ceremonious training in the ways of killing monsters. Their friendship was that of an inseparable sort; however, there were days when Deo seemed to feel as if he had to be more protective than not. 

On those days that Tommy had woken up from nightmares, Deo's presence around him seemed to tighten. 

"Be careful in there," called Deo, half-jokingly, as Tommy stepped into the shower.

"I will!" Tommy replied. But his head was still reeling with the nightmare, and every time he blinked, he was back at the bottom of that ravine again, limbs twisted, unable to move.

It seemed he would never escape that ravine.

\--

The dining hall was noisy as always, as various Academy students of varying ages received their breakfast and settled at different tables, breaking off into cliques and groups. Tommy often wondered if regular old school was also like this; shattered into different aspects of popularity, different segments of kids wielding different levels of social status. It was like that in the movies he'd seen; though he assumed that popularity at _normal_ school wasn't based on how well you could wield a sword.

And Tommy--though he was reluctant to admit it--was _very_ good at wielding a sword.

He was incredibly quiet about it--much to Deo's incredulousness--but he'd kept a steady position at the top of his class ever since he'd been deposited at the Academy. He was what his instructors liked to call a natural; duels came easily to him, the sword fitting perfectly between his fingers. It almost seemed to be an extension of himself, at times; he often found simulated missions to be far too easy, far too _predictable_. Countless times he'd complained to Deo about wanting _more_ , about wanting a real life mission. He wanted to see a werewolf up close. He wanted to examine a vampire's fangs, to poke and pry and explore the world he was being trained to wage war with.

"Tommy, are you listening?"

Tommy jerked, and realized that his table of friends all had their eyes trained on him. His fingers were wrapped firmly around his fork, and he had been pushing around a pile of soggy eggs on his plate. He had not been listening to whatever was being discussed. 

"What?" Tommy glanced around at them, from Deo to Freddie to Jack. Confusion prickled at him. "What'd you say?" 

"I said," started Freddie, glancing hesitantly at Deo, "I said...well, I was asking you what you'd do if _you_ were a vampire."

Tommy blinked; it was typical of his friends to discuss hypothetical scenarios, and it was typical of him to zone out. He merely shrugged, trying to ignore the unspoken concern that was passing conspicuously between Freddie and Deo. "I guess I'd....drink blood. I don't know, I mean, that's what they do."

"I'd probably turn myself in." This came from Jack through forkfuls of egg. He nodded once, as if confirming this scenario. "What's the use in running around and hiding when you're eventually going to get tracked down?"

"Well, I'd probably try and make the most out of it," said Freddie--and Tommy was already on his way back out of the conversation, his mind sliding easily away from his friend's words. "I'd have a good time, I think. Being immortal sounds _sick_."

"Aw, don't tell me you _wish_ you were one of those fuckers."

"I never said that! I'm--I'm just saying it'd be cool to live forever and, like, be able to heal yourself, you know?"

"Yeah, but you have to drink blood."

"And?"

Deo's eyes met Tommy's from across the table, and they were filled with something that resounded with Tommy like, _This is such a stupid conversation._ Tommy found himself grinning, suddenly, at Deo's interjection, and soon, their lips were both split with small smiles, both silently laughing at their private little joke. 

"Freddie, I'd beat the shit out of you if I were a vampire." Tommy shrugged, tossing an egg onto Freddie's plate. "Just saying."

"Aw, shut up. My vampire self would _slaughter_ your vampire self." Freddie's smirk was fierce.

"I'd annihilate the both of you, case closed," said Deo, before standing and picking up his tray, turning to go throw it away. 

Tommy watched him go, then turned back to his food, poking steadily at the remaining eggs with his fork. His stomach was still knotted from that morning; he didn't really know why he was pretending to eat.

He didn't notice the heavy silence that had befallen the table.

He didn't notice that across from him, Freddie had gone pale.

Until he glanced up and saw that Deo--on his way back from the trash can--had his eyes trained on something just over Tommy's shoulder. 

Tommy's stomach dropped. He was almost afraid to look.

Slowly, he turned and suddenly found himself gazing up, up, into the stony eyes of Academy legend Wilbur Soot. 

The kids in Tommy's grade had nicknamed him Killbur; his Hunting methods had spread like wildfire throughout the Academy as being deemed unorthodox, often more creative than efficient. Rumor had it that on his very first mission, he'd strangled a werewolf with his bare hands. Although, Tommy wasn't sure how true _that_ bit of information was, it didn't change the fact that Wilbur's very presence in the dining hall--as opposed to the separate wing that was reserved for all of the Academy's older, more experienced students--was a phenomenon in and of itself.

And the fact that Killbur himself was standing at Tommy's table, gazing down at him, was enough to make his blood go cold.

"Um." Tommy felt suddenly awkward, fumbling. His throat was very dry. "What's up?"

Wilbur's eyebrow twitched. "I've been sent to retrieve you," he said, in a steady monotone that gave away absolutely nothing about his intentions. He had a beanie shoved into his bird's nest of brown hair, a fashion item that clashed horribly with his Academy uniform. His gaze flickered momentarily to Deo--who was still standing, frozen in one spot--then landed back on Tommy. "Tell your friends you'll be back.....relatively soon. I don't really know."

"Uh, okay." Tommy glanced quickly at Freddie--who looked as if he'd swallowed some kind of bug--then up to Deo. "I'll....be back," he said. 

"Hopefully," he heard Jack mutter under his breath.

"Come on." Wilbur gestured vaguely, and obediently, Tommy stood and followed him through the dining hall, through the lingering looks of fascinated kids. 

Once they'd exited the dining hall and were walking through the echoing halls of the Academy, Wilbur let himself fall in line next to Tommy--who's mind was, admittedly, whirling itself to pieces. He'd barely had contact with the upper classes; the administration was very precise at keeping them separate from each other. Let alone this class legend, who seemed to Tommy like a bit of an outcast.

"You know, you're a bit of a legend in the upper classes. A lower-class prodigy, they say," said Wilbur, so suddenly and so casually that Tommy stopped walking for a moment, doubling back, making sure he'd actually heard the other boy speak. 

"Pardon? _I'm_ a legend?" Tommy did his best not to sound too incredulous.

"Well, sure. You're top of your class--of course, people are going to talk about you." Wilbur merely shrugged, as if he were relating something blatantly obvious. "I hear you're good with a sword. That's why I've been sent to get you, I think. I'm actually not sure why the Headmaster wants to see us."

"What do you mean you're not sure?" Tommy felt his heart rate begin to increase. "Where are you taking me? Am I...are we in trouble?"

But Wilbur only shrugged again. "If I knew that, I'd tell you. Please stop asking questions."

And that shut Tommy right up.

But he didn't mind.

_A legend._

_That_ was certainly something you didn't hear while stranded at the bottom of a ravine.

\---

_ AFTER _

_TWO YEARS LATER_

Tommy lay painfully awake, his back pressed flat against the mattress, eyes trained vaguely on the darkened ceiling overhead.

He was afraid to go to sleep.

The nightmares had been progressively getting worse, progressively getting more and more real. He'd begun to feel the impact of his fall into the ravine; and it was becoming harder and harder to wake up, to get himself out of that horrible place. 

So, simply: he didn't sleep.

Beside him, in the bed on the other side of the room, Wilbur's breaths had slowed considerably. At least someone was sleeping. 

Tommy repressed another sigh; he repressed the urge to turn over and bury his face into the pillow and let sleep overcome him. The house was strange, anyway; unfamiliar. He wasn't necessarily a fan of unfamiliarity. 

A few more minutes; Tommy lay and listened to Wilbur's breathing, to the breeze knocking its knuckles against the window frame outside. 

Until he couldn't quite take it anymore. 

Moving quickly, quietly, he pulled back the covers and stood, slipping on a pair of pants before reaching down and grabbing a pair of sneakers from the foot of the bed and padding sneakily over to the bedroom door. As silently as he could, he pulled it open.

"Where are you going?"

Wilbur's voice was so sudden, so unexpected--he'd been so sure the other boy had been asleep!--that Tommy jumped about a mile, letting out a tiny squeak of surprise. "Jesus," he gasped; Wilbur had propped himself up onto his elbow, eyes boring into Tommy through the dark. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was," Wilbur admitted, then shrugged; his tone was drowsy, his voice scratchy. "But you're a louder roommate than you think you are."

_Shit._ Tommy was silent for a moment, then said, "I can't sleep."

"So where are you going?"

Tommy considered this. "I'm not sure, honestly. For a walk."

"Mm." Wilbur moved a bit, reached an arm over toward where his jacket was draped over his bedside table. Grabbing it, he tossed it to Tommy. "Take that. Phil said it gets awfully cold up here in the mountains."

Tommy caught the jacket easily and slipped it on over his shirt. He nodded gratefully at Wilbur. "Thanks."

"And be careful." Wilbur was groaning, already falling back into sleep. "Wouldn't want to get killed before the mission even starts."

"I will," Tommy promised, but Wilbur was already snoring again. 

And so he crept quietly through the house--careful not to wake Phil, extra cautiously sliding past Techno's bedroom--and exited without a hitch, emerging into the cool night air. It was refreshing out here; cold, like Wilbur had warned him it would be, but refreshing. Certainly better than laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling all night.

The residential street was dark, illuminated only by a single streetlight. On the opposite side of the house was nothing but woods; behind them, the same. It certainly was a secluded area. Earlier that afternoon, Tommy and Wilbur had gone to the downtown area to poke around a bit, which consisted of nothing more than a single street with a few fading shops. The entire town seemed to be nothing more than a few neighborhoods and that single strip of street downtown. It certainly was odd.

Tommy pulled the jacket tighter around himself, repressed a shiver; he quite liked how the mountain air felt in his lungs. Nothing like the cramped, artificial fields of the Academy. Out here, he was free. Wilderness was something he was unfamiliar with.

_But he could get familiar. He could get used to a lot of things._

Almost excitedly, Tommy turned to walk down the street--perhaps to see if he could find a trail into these woods, he was up for a bit of night hiking--but was stopped almost immediately in his tracks by the sight of a figure, sitting slumped on the curb a little ways down the street.

A small boy, a nest of messy brown hair (not as messy as Wilbur's, but close enough). A button-down that was far too big for him. Head bowed toward the concrete, hanging between his legs. 

He was sitting in front of the house next door, which was set a little ways away from Tommy's own house. He seemed to be enveloped in something that looked like staring obsoletely at the concrete. 

Tommy shifted, wondering if he should go to him. The distress was evident; and the boy looked to be his age. But was it worth it?

It certainly was none of his business.

But suddenly--so suddenly that Tommy's heart shuddered strangely--the boy's head snapped up, and he fixed Tommy with a gaze that seemed to be a mix of confusion and accusation. Tommy took a step back; the boy looked away just as quickly, turning his eyes back downward toward his bare feet on the asphalt. 

Almost against his will, Tommy felt himself approaching the boy, his feet moving of their own accord, driven by some sort of curiosity that always seemed to be lodged within his chest. 

He settled on the curb beside the boy.

There was a moment of silence--not quite awkward, almost comfortable. Then, the boy said, "What are you doing?"

"You seemed lonely." And it was the truth; he had seemed lonely. Everything drenched in tonight seemed lonely. 

"So you're sitting with me?"

"So I'm sitting with you." Tommy gave him a small smile; nothing too wide, not at first. "Question for you, though; _why_ are you barefoot?"

He glanced down at the boy's unclad feet, and the boy--suddenly self-conscious--stiffened. "Oh, um..." He shrugged. "No time."

"No time?"

"I was in a rush." The boy exhaled, turning his gaze to the pavement between his toes. "I had to get out."

"Get out of where?"

"The house." The boy jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "I had a nightmare about it."

"Oh." Tommy shifted, staring out across the street at the shimmering trees that lined the start of the wood. It was very dark. "I had one, too," he said, for no real reason. It simply popped out of him, drawn by something warm and shriveling within the other boy. Something he wanted to comfort, in some way.

Tommy wasn't a very comforting person. In fact, he was very loud. Obnoxious, according to Techno. Deo had once called him _eccentric_ but Deo often gave credit where credit was never due.

And to Tommy's utter shock, the other boy let out a giggle that seemed out of place on the dark street. "We must be connected," he said, and fixed Tommy with a pair of sparkling brown eyes. 

Tommy's smile was natural, this time. "I guess we must be, but I had the sense to put on some shoes."

The boy's giggles intensified, and suddenly--without even really realizing it--Tommy was giggling, too. They were a pair of strange laughter, settled on the curb in the dead of night.

After a moment--after their bubbliness had died down--the other boy sighed. "It was about the house."

Tommy blinked. "What was?"

"My nightmare." The boy flashed him a grim smile. "We moved in two days ago, my brother and I. Two of his friends, too. We...." The boy trailed off for a moment. "It's nice here, but I can't shake this feeling that something's going to go.....wrong."

Tommy found himself nodding along. His gut twisted with sympathy. "I know what you mean."

The other boy stiffened. "You do?"

Tommy offered a grimace. "We moved in today." He gestured over his shoulder at his own house (it was strange to call it his own, since he'd gone most of his teenage years without a home to call his own), which sat stark and silent in the dark. "My....family and I. This place definitely feels like....like it's waiting."

"Yeah." The boy shivered very visibly, trembling in his shirt. He was in desperate need of a haircut, Tommy noticed; his brown locks hung horribly in his eyes. "It feels like it's going to swallow me whole, I think."

Tommy felt a sudden twist of empathy, something like a fondness for this random boy. He hadn't realized it before--he hadn't had the time, what with the excitement of the mission and all--but he found that he was feeling the exact same way. Like this _town_ was the monster, a gaping maw, and needlish teeth ready to scoop him up and gobble him alive. 

"Well, hey." Almost on its own, Tommy's hand alighted on the boy's shoulder. "At least you'll have some company while it happens."

It was an awful joke. Simply one of Tommy's worst.

But the boy burst into a bubble of laughter again and tossed Tommy one of the most grateful smiles he'd ever seen. 

"What's your name?" Tommy removed his hand from the boy's shoulder, tucking it back into the pocket of Wilbur's jacket. Around them, the wind picked up suddenly, blowing bits of dead leaves skittering down the road. 

"Tubbo." The boy extended his hand, almost diplomatically. It was almost comical. "And you are?"

"Call me Tommy." Reaching forward, Tommy clasped Tubbo's hand and gave it a firm shake. "Pleased to meet you."

And unbelievably, Tubbo began to giggle again. Perhaps it was the nerves setting themselves loose from the nightmare's hold. "We sound like a couple of pricks," he said, then began to practically howl with laughter. 

To his surprise--the Academy had never been of the giddy sort, filled with kids who were focused strictly on the killing, the training, the seriousness of it all--Tommy joined in, and the pair laughed themselves into a fit, until they were both sprawled on the pavement clutching their stomachs. They laughed as though their nightmares were nothing more than imagined creatures beneath childhood beds. They laughed as though they didn't feel like there was an overhanging doom enveloping the two of them, fixing them in its ever tightening, ever clutching fingers. But eventually--as all things do--it died down, and Tommy was left with a peculiar feeling of loneliness. 

"I was gonna go for a walk," he said, with a sudden pang of longing blooming in his gut, "did you wanna come with?"

Tubbo brightened. "I love night walks."

And at that, Tommy brightened with him, grinning. "You better go get yourself a pair of fucking _shoes_ , then."

A friend was the last thing Tommy had expected when being sent on this mission. Sure, Wilbur, Techno, and Phil were great, and he loved them all dearly (like a younger brother was supposed to). 

But a friend!

Suddenly, the next six months didn't seem like they were going to be so lonely after all.


	4. Chapter 4

_ BEFORE _

Her brew was very nearly completed.

She stepped back, hand on her brow, and gazed at it, bubbling in its pot on the stove of her tiny apartment's kitchen. It smelled horrible; but as was the way with potion-making. There were a rare few that smelled good. 

She produced a lighter from her pocket, stepped over to light the candles lining the shelves of the kitchen, all of various complimenting scents. She couldn't have her unsuspecting neighbors complaining about the stench of rotten eggs again. Last time, they'd gotten awfully close to discovering that origin of the rot was _not_ from her lack of cooking talent. 

After the candles were all flickering with scented flames, she ran a hand through her hair, sighing as she continued to stare at her pot of brew.

"And you're sure this'll work, Niki?"

She glanced over to where Fundy--shirt pulled daintily over his nose to block the stench--sat at the table. His hair was mussed and his eyes were laden with heavy bags from countless sleepless nights; Niki was sure she didn't look much better. The kitchen's surfaces were littered with emptied cups--she kept forgetting to do the dishes--with the remnants of coffee gathered on the bottoms of them. It had been.....perhaps three nights? Maybe even four--she wasn't sure--since they'd last slept.

Tonight was the full moon, and Fundy was getting desperate. 

"This is our last option." Niki sat across from her friend, eyes fixated on the stove, making sure the brew inside of the pot didn't bubble over. She said this with a carefully matter-of-fact tone; Fundy wasn't one for sugarcoating. "And if it doesn't work--"

"I know what happens if it doesn't work." Fundy sighed, staring down at his hands, which were wrung nervously in his lap. "I'm.....accustomed."

For the first time, Niki tossed a gaze toward him. He was staring down at his intertwined fingers, expression painted with something she couldn't quite read. She frowned, feeling that familiar pang of sympathy hit her like a small semi. 

They'd been trying for months. Ever since Fundy had returned from that camping trip with two, long gashes etched into his arm and a fundamentally damaged stem of cells in his DNA. 

_A wolf and a witch sit in a kitchen, awaiting some kind of cure._ Niki thought this with a smile hanging at the back of her throat. 

She could vaguely recall her grandmother reciting to her a myth about this sort of thing when she was a child; a young, naive witch (like herself) befriending a wolf in the woods, a wolf who is wounded and frightened by the violent ways of the hunters that seek him. 

But Niki's grandmother's voice had been fading for a long time now; she could hardly remember anything anymore, it seemed.

"Niki."

She snapped back to the present; Fundy gestured wildly toward the pot, where the brew was just beginning to bubble over the sides.

"Oh, fuck." Niki launched out of her seat, grabbed the lid to the pot, and snapped it over the flow. She switched off the oven, then grabbed a towel and began to wipe up the excess potion that had escaped the pot. Sighing, she relished the fading scent of rotten eggs. 

Behind her, Fundy shifted anxiously. "When can I drink it?"

Niki cast a glance at the clock, which read five-fifty. The sun was on its way down beyond the window; the moon would be up soon.

They'd be out of time soon.

"Five minutes," she said. "You'll need it to cool a bit."

"Can I drink it hot?"

Niki shook her head, began to gather up the herbs she'd chopped that were still littered on the counter. "Do you want to boil your tongue off?"

Fundy sighed, and settled into an anxious silence. Niki continued to clean, letting her hands take her mind off of the problems at hand, as she often did. Her hands were her best friend; in casting spells, brewing potions--they were always busy, always clearing away dark thoughts in the lodgings of her mind. 

She remembered a time where Fundy was fascinated by her potions; they were childhood friends, always had been joined at the hip. Moved to the city together, their nights consisting of late nights whispering to each other secrets and concerns about adulthood. Fundy had been content to stare at Niki's supernatural world from afar. 

But life has a way of pulling people into things they'd rather not be a part of. 

Niki remembered that night of the camping trip. Being awoken by a frantic call at three in the morning. Another one at six that same morning. The realization that her best friend had undergone something horrible. 

Another thing her grandmother had always told her--her grandmother, clairvoyant as ever--was that Niki was too caring. Too willing to give herself away.

When the brew cooled, Niki poured it into a glass--it was black, opaque, bubbly--and handed it gingerly to Fundy, who grasped it and gulped it down in three swallows, face pinched in a grimace at the surely horrid flavor. 

After a moment, Niki settled across from him, anxious. "Feel any different?"

Fundy's expression was frozen, seeming to consider. "I don't know," he said, so softly she could hardly hear him.

The room seemed to be suspended in something like purgatory. Her fingers were callused from cutting up herbs, gathering them in the woods bordering the edges of the city. Her brained was fried; but it would be worthwhile if it worked.

It would all be worthwhile.

But just as she parted her lips to question him again, he doubled over, a groan of pain escaping him, and Niki's heart plummeted to her toes. 

_All for nothing._

"Shit." She jolted to her feet, approaching him, letting her hand rest on his shoulder. "Come on."

She tugged on his hoodie; he didn't move, face scrunched in what she knew was immense pain. She could practically feel his muscles quivering, rearranging themselves around his bones like elastic bands. His cells rearranging, his DNA twisting. It was a positively awful curse, this thing he'd been infected with.

"Fundy." Niki was breathless as she tugged on his hoodie once again; he couldn't be in the kitchen when it happened. Too many valuables in here, too much that could break; too many loud noises that would alert the neighbors (those pesky neighbors). "Fundy, come on."

Slowly--paintsakingly--he followed her out of the kitchen, and she led him to the hall, where there was a small, closet-like room that was meant to be a storage unit built into the apartment. She'd cleared all of her belongings out of it, however, for this reason, and this reason only. It was an interior room, which meant that it could safely harbor a creature of Fundy's caliber and anybody outside of the apartment's vicinity would be none the wiser.

And he so he couldn't destroy the furniture of the place; Niki had worked hard on making the place her own. She wasn't about to sacrifice _that_ for a pesky werewolf's curse.

Fundy entered the room and immediately collapsed onto the floor.

Niki slammed the door shut, and bolted the lock.

She went back into the kitchen, sighing and running a hand through her unwashed hair. She continued to clean up her brewing mess--the vials and the herbs and the sticky substances from failed mixtures. 

She did her best not to listen to the scratching and whimpering coming from down the hallway.

\--------

She woke with her cheek on the cold tile of the kitchen floor.

She groaned, stirring, moving her stiffened limbs slowly. The remnants of her dream were still fluttering against the backs of her eyelids-- _a dark-haired boy, a house in the woods_ \--but it was fading quickly, as all the things in her life seemed to do. 

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored oven door; wild and short, unkempt blonde hair, eyes that were still droopy with sleep. She suppressed a groan; her thoughts were soggy. 

"I'm glad you're finally awake." 

Niki jerked, turned slowly to see that Fundy--an unkempt being himself--was sitting at the kitchen table, daintily stirring creamer into a mug of coffee. He was gazing at her with a sleepy, horribly exhausted smile. "It's been a lonely morning," he said. 

Niki placed a warm hand against her freezing cheek, letting the temperatures ease her confusion. "Fundy...." And then she remembered. The nights of brewing, the hours of waiting, searching, trying to find some kind of cure.

The look in Fundy's eye when it became evident that their latest trial had been a failure.

"You're quite funny when you sleep, you know." He sipped at his coffee, staring at her over the brim of the cup. There was a peculiar lightheartedness to him this morning, considering what had become of him last night. Perhaps it was some sort of post-transformation clarity. "You talk to yourself."

This caught Niki off-guard. "I do?" Her face flushed with slight embarrassment. "What do I say?"

"I don't really know. Mostly gibberish." Fundy waved his hand dismissively. "You _did_ go on and on about something like.....it sounded like 'will.' Like the name, maybe. Or 'where there's a will, there's a way.' I'm not really sure, but you said it over and over. 'Will, will, will....'" 

He trailed off. Niki sat in a bewildered silence. She'd never spoken in her sleep before.

Not in any instance that she knew of, anyway.

She peered at Fundy cautiously, watching him as he sipped his coffee and scrolled through his phone. He looked strangely human. Strangely normal. 

Carefully, she asked softly, "How.....are you?"

"Hm?" Fundy glanced up at her, eyebrows raised. As if he didn't have a care in the world.

"How--" Niki gestured to him, unable to formulate a sentence.

"Oh, you mean after last night?" Then, and only then, was when Fundy's face fell slightly. He glanced down at himself--at his ratty old hoodie, his jeans--and shrugged. "I'm well. I feel sort of refreshed, oddly enough."

There was a certain kind of sadness to his words. Niki frowned. "Are you sure?" she asked, and began to stand--to her utter shock, the kitchen had been cleaned. It was practically spotless and gleaming, the counters void of any evidence that she'd ever been brewing. "Jesus, Fundy, did you--?"

"Yes. You're welcome," he said, and she turned to look at him again, all nonchalant. A carefully concealed mask of carelessness. "You need to get your head out of the clouds sometime soon, Niki."

At this, she let herself smile. He smiled back, lips parting in a rare, dwarfishly genuine grin. 

They were a strange pair, but they made do. 

_Will._

She made her way over to the cabinet and pulled out a mug for herself, filling it with black coffee before joining Fundy at the table. They sat and sipped in silence, as the morning ticked on as if nothing had ever happened.

\--------

_ NOW _

_ONE YEAR LATER_

_Oncoming danger. The flash of a sword, the swish of a pink braid flinging by her eyes. Someone calling her name--who was it? Tubbo--was that Tubbo?--bent over the unconscious form of a blond-headed boy. ___

___And then there was the boy in the beanie, with his hollowed-out eyes and his thin, satirical lips._ _ _

She awakened with a jerk and found--not for the first time--that she was standing upright. 

Around her, the woods were gleaming with the drippings of early morning light, sunlight poking its head through gaps in the branches like an eager friend, desperate to say hello to her. She gazed around, taking in her unfamiliar surroundings with a dull sense of exasperation. It used to be panic, that feeling that hit her when she found herself in an unfamiliar place upon awakening; she used to hyperventilate, to wonder just _how_ she'd gotten from her bed to the park on Main. Who had seen her? What had she done. 

__But as she stood in this clearing--the trees around her bent in ways she wasn't used to, the wilderness unkempt and unfriendly--all she could bring herself to feel was that horribly dull sense of _here we go again.__ _

__She sighed, bringing up a hand to rest on her forehead. She could still see the hollowed eyes of the boy in the beanie--she'd been dreaming of him for so long she felt she could almost reach out and touch him. His face was always blurred just enough so that his features were smeared like an oil painting, but his hair was brown, she knew, and always tucked into a rust-colored beanie._ _

__He always spoke to her. But she could never speak to him._ _

__Oh, how she wished her mind would let her speak to him._ _

__Turning slowly, she tried to gauge just where she was, and what direction would take her back to the house. Her mind was still slightly foggy, still reeling from the velocity of her dream--which was already fading, bringing the boy in the beanie back into the void where he apparently lived._ _

__"Niki."_ _

__She jolted, thrown off by the sudden sound of another voice in the sheer silence of this wilderness. She whirled, until her gaze came to rest on Tubbo, standing amongst the trees like some sort of poltergeist. His hair was mussed, and he looked....well, he looked utterly exhausted, if Niki was being honest._ _

__Nevertheless, she breathed a small breath of relief, and said, "How'd you find me?"_ _

__Tubbo shrugged. "I kind of had....I didn't exactly sleep last night." He shrugged as if that's all there was to it. Niki knew better than to press, anyway. "I caught you as you were going out the back door. Kind of figured you were sleepwalking and would need some kind of....you know. Assistant." He grinned._ _

__Niki returned the smile and shook her head slightly. "You didn't have to do that."_ _

__But Tubbo's smile only grew wider. "Oh, but I'm a good friend. I really don't mind being out here, in the dark." He gestured around at the trees and brush surrounding the both of them. "It's actually quite cool. Tons of wildlife out here. I'm pretty sure I saw, like, thirty different kinds of bugs? I don't know, I didn't count, but it was _fascinating_. Also a lot of tasty animals--stuff that hits different at, like, three in the morning." He licked his lips. "I'm sure Fundy will have a good time out here when the full moon rolls around."_ _

__Niki couldn't help but giggle at Tubbo's persistent enthusiasm. His wide-eyed nature of looking at the world never failed to amaze her--especially considering the dark things all of them had seen._ _

__"Well, I'm glad you followed me." Niki crossed her arms, and suppressed a shiver; the chilled morning air was starting to seep into her skin, and the fabric of her pajamas was nowhere near thick enough to protect her from it. "I'm not sure I know how to get back to the house."_ _

__Tubbo glanced down at Niki's bare feet, and grinned. "You're gonna have a fun time trying to get through all this underbrush."_ _

__"Just--show me where to go." She started forward, toward Tubbo, and he took the hint, turning and leading her through the trees and brightening sunlight, back toward their humble little abode._ _

When they reached the house (Niki had taken quite the walk into the woods, apparently, for it took around five to ten or so minutes for them to finally emerge from the underbrush into their backyard), they found Eret standing on the tiny, pathetic-looking back porch, clutching a mug of coffee between both hands, a large jacket thrown over his shoulders. At the sight of Niki and Tubbo, his expression brightened, and he approached them enthusiastically.

"Niki, you sure do like to walk." He smiled.

Niki returned the smile weakly, and said, "I guess I'm just too excited to be in a new house."

But her mind was far away. It had now dawned on her that she couldn't remember a single bit of the dream she'd been having. Even the boy in the beanie's expressions were fading, his hand floating away in the mist like a ghost's. 

"Well, let's get you inside." Eret cast a sympathetic glance at Niki's thin clothing. "You must be cold as shit."

\--------

The morning wore on, as Niki's mornings tended to. She freshened up inside, dressing herself in the appropriate warmer clothing for the biting, ruthless weather outside, then spent the early afternoon up in the attic, which served as her new brewing space. It was nice up there; not like the kitchen she'd had back in her apartment, but suitable, and much larger, as well. 

She quite liked brewing. Though her powers consisted of many abilities, she liked to utilize them more toward potion-making and herbal care more than anything. She wasn't a violent person, unlike most of the witches she'd encountered in her lifetime (which, for the most part, had been her overly-trigger-happy family). She liked the idea of a being a quiet keeper of peace; and if it was necessary someone be dealt with, a slip of poison in their drink would do just fine. No need for all this cursing and binding and hexing.

And of course, she had had to deal with people from time to time.

Potion-making wasn't easy, but it was simple in its own right. And Niki liked simplicity.

As always, Fundy came up to sit with her while she worked, making small conversation as she poured and mixed and chopped and boiled. He seemed distracted; but she couldn't blame him. Her mind was far away, for some reason, back in that particular fog of her dream world. It had been so long since she'd last slept-walked. 

_Why now?_

"Niki? Fundy? You up here?"

Around two, Eret ascended the stepladder into the attic. Niki was stationed at her temporary stove; Fundy was sprawled on the floor, where his temporary computer was setup, fingers flying away over the keyboard as he wrote out some sort of code. 

Eret looked fresh, in a sweater Niki had never seen before. His eyes were lit with something like worry; but it was mild, for everything about Eret had to be mild-mannered. "Have either of you seen Tubbo?"

Niki took a step back from the stove, and wiped her hands on her jeans. Looking to Eret, she saw that his brow was furrowed in a rather interesting manner. Eret was someone who was hard to worry. "No, why?"

He shrugged. "Just....he ran off this morning to go meet a 'friend.' Hasn't been back since, I don't think."

"Hm." Niki frowned. It was very unlike Tubbo to disappear in such a disruptive manner. 

"I mean, I didn't even know he'd managed to make friends. If I'm being honest, I thought he was far too strange for something like that." Eret ran a hand through his hair, and began to pace. "But I've looked everywhere, and can't seem to find him. And if we were in the city, I probably wouldn't be this worried, but this is such a new place, and this is such unfamiliar territory--"

"Well, hey." Niki stepped forward, put off by Eret's panic, and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We can look for him. Yeah? I'm sure he's fine. He's a resourceful kid." She let an eyebrow quirk. "More resourceful than most, probably, with what you've given him."

Eret nodded. "Yeah, it's just--"

He was cut off by the sound of frantic knocking on the front door, three stories below. 

To Niki, it was a faint sound, like mice skittering in between drywall. But to Eret and his irregularly heightened hearing, it must've been like a symphony. He tossed Niki a wide-eyed gaze. 

But, before either of them could say anything, Fundy piped up from the floor: "It isn't Tubbo."

Niki turned around to face him; he was still seemingly uninterested in their conversation, still honed in on the flashing screen of his computer monitor. "How do you know?"

"It doesn't smell like him." Fundy said this so matter-of-factly, he could've been relaying the weather. "But it seems important, whatever is happening down there. Whoever's at the door seems like they need something."

Eret sighed loudly. Niki removed her hand from his shoulder. "I'll get it," she said, softly, sensing his growing irritation. Eret was not normally an irritated person; it took a lot to ruffle his feathers.

So Niki, quickly, descended the ladder into the hallway and rushed through the house, down to the front door, where she could sense a body standing on the other side, waiting. 

"Coming," she called to the wood, before unlatching the lock and pulling open the door to find--

Her heart dropped out beneath the bottom of her chest.

It was him, of course--but it couldn't be. He was a figment of her own imagination, an image produced by her tactile sleep. He was a mirage. Not real. Not something that was solid.

And yet, here he was.

Beanie and all.

"Hi," he said, in a voice that was nothing like she'd expected it would be. His hair was wild, his jacket wet with the drizzle of the day. He was tall, so very tall, towering in the doorway like an omen of some kind. "Um, sorry to bother you, miss, but I'm looking for my brother Tommy?"

Niki's words had dried up in her mouth, and she fumbled for a moment to find them again, but it was as if her brain had skipped a function and she was now scrambling to unjam its gears. Her mouth worked, and she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, knowing she must look ridiculous, like some kind of fish out of water. 

"Is....everything all right?" His voice was like honey, all warm and sweet. It made the pitted feeling in her gut sink even deeper into shock, even deeper into foreboding.

"I'm fine," she finally managed to say, and flashed him an incredibly forced smile. "Just....been feeling ill all day, I guess."

"Oh." He blinked. "Well, I hope you feel better."

They stood for a moment in silence--obsolete and heavy--before Niki said, quite suddenly (too suddenly), "Um....who are you looking for?"

He smiled, a little hesitantly. "My, uh, my brother Tommy. He's....I think he's been hanging around with your....brother?" He raised his eyebrows in a very obvious question mark--Niki wasn't quite sure how to answer, so she just nodded, wanting him to continue talking--anything to get him to continue talking. "He's....yeah. He's very sociable, but I--he's been gone all day, and we can't seem to get ahold of him." He shoved his hands into his pockets, and rocked back onto his heels. "Was just wondering if he was here."

"Oh." Niki--still revelling in her shock--took a moment to answer, floored that the attention had been shifted to her. She leaned against the doorframe to steady herself, and said, "Well...I haven't seen....we can't exactly find Tubbo, either." At this, she offered a weak smile. "So I'm afraid I can't help you just now."

_You sound like a blubbering idiot._

But she couldn't help it. It was _him_ , down to the color of the beanie. And it was strange to see him with a fully formed face. He was _real_.

"Oh. Well....sorry to bother you, then." He flashed her a polite smile, and began to back away. "If you see a loud, blonde little shit hanging around with your brother, give me a call. We live right over there." He gestured a hand toward the nearest house, a little down the road to their left. 

_They live next door._

"I'll see you around.....?" Again, that open-ended question mark at the end of his words. She realized--too late, probably--that he was waiting for her to give him her name.

"Oh." She jolted back to a functioning state of mind. "Niki. I'm Niki."

This seemed to widen his smile--he seemed to be amused by how flustered she was. "Well, it was certainly nice to meet you, Niki. I'm Wilbur."

_Wilbur._

_Will._

"It was nice to meet you, too," she managed to say, then waved after him as he flashed her one last, almost taunting smile, before turning and starting down the street back toward his house. 

She waited until he was several paces away before slamming the door shut and leaning back against it, drawing in a shaky breath.

For so long, she'd dreamt of him.

And now he was real.

_What did this mean?_

"Niki?"

Eret and Fundy had descended the stairs and were now standing in the doorway to the foyer, watching her. Eret's brow was furrowed as he watched her catch her breath. When their eyes met, he started toward her, concerned. But quickly, she jerked away from him, walking away, placing a hand against her wildly beating heart.

"Niki, what's wrong?" Eret stopped where he was, crossed his outstretched arms. 

"Who was at the door?" said Fundy, eyes ablaze with some sort of strange emotion.

Niki shook her head, trying to clear away the shock that had so gracefully befallen her composure. "It was.....he lives next door. He was looking for Tubbo's new friend, I think. Said they were brothers."

Eret and Fundy shared a rather confused glance. Niki wished desperately she could put into words the feeling of seeing him. Of realizing that something that was meant to be a figment of your imagination was real, and was talking to you. 

The realization that she might be like her grandmother after all.

"The next door neighbor," she said finally. "Said he was someone named Tommy's older brother."

"Did he give his name? What did he look like?" Eret stepped forward, eyes wide with anticipation, confusion.

Niki flashed Fundy a meaningful look, and hoped against all hope that he would understand her subliminal message. "He said his name was Wilbur."

And to her surprise--and immense relief--Fundy's eyebrows shot upward, and he looked to her as if to ask, _Are you sure it's him?_

She nodded; Eret glanced between them, utterly lost.

But something in Fundy had seemed to jump to life, for he stepped forward, and with one last look to Niki, he said to Eret: "Looks like we need to find this Tommy fellow."

"You think that's who Tubbo's with?" Eret ran a hand through his hair.

"I think we need to find him, either way." Niki nodded, and felt a great weight wash over her shoulders, settling within her chest and clawing at her ribcage.

It appeared that their seemingly quiet life in this quaint little town wouldn't be so quiet after all.


	5. Chapter 5

_ BEFORE _

They called him Killbur because they assumed he was trigger-happy. 

Crazily inclined to kill, though not as skilled as Technoblade--of course not, because Technoblade was virtually untouchable when it came to skill. They said he made up for this fact by being as creative as possible in the killing, by taking wildly taboo concepts and applying them to monsters.

They called him ruthless.

They called him insane.

But he didn't consider himself any of these things; no, in his mind, he felt that he was still a child, still grasping and rolling and bouncing away from any mishaps that might fly toward him. 

He was just trying to get by in the ways he knew how.

But of course, his methods of killing monsters had earned him some rather unwanted attention among his peers--among the entire Academy, really. They all regarded him with a strange sense of caution, like he was going to tie tripwire around their necks instead of the necks of murderous werewolves. Like he was something to be feared.

Like he was going to snap.

Wilbur didn't think he was going to snap, at least.

In fact, he thought he was quite stable in the mental department. 

But as he moved through the lower levels dining hall, toward the blonde boy sitting at the table with his friends, he felt a strange and sudden rush of embarrassment. So many eyes were trained on him. He could hear whispers flying about in the air, like he couldn't hear them jabbering in awe. 

He was no Technoblade, that was for sure.

But he was Killbur.

And he was already having quite the day.

He'd been practically yanked out of his recreation room by one of the Headmaster's messengers; when he'd asked what on earth was going on, he'd only been handed a note with a single name scribbled on it: _Tommy Innit._ It was accompanied by a faded picture of a boy with blonde hair and strikingly bright blue eyes--it was an Academy-issued identification picture, one that each student was required to take at the beginning of each year.

"What is this?" Wilbur had felt a weird sort of desperation rising in his throat, but he kept his cool; he didn't like being kept in the dark, not like this. 

The messenger had bowed his head. "Find him and bring him to the Headmaster's office. He should be in the lower levels dining hall, eating breakfast."

"What for?"

But the messenger didn't respond, only shook his head and stepped away. "The Headmaster is waiting." 

And then he scurried off down the hall, leaving Wilbur to wonder what the hell was going on.

So he approached the table full of lower levels, and tried to ignore their eyes as they fell on him. He tried to ignore the blatant fear, the utter shock. 

_What the hell is Wilbur Soot doing here?_

_Come to strangle us with your tripwire?_

But Tommy's eyes as he'd looked up at him: they weren't filled with that same fear. They were only filled with curiosity, a calm and controlled sort of question. _Do you need something from me?_

Rumor had it that the kid was going to grow up to be the next Technoblade. It seemed he sure had the composure for it.

And as the two of them made their way through the dining room and out into the hallway, Wilbur felt as if his morning had churned him up and spit him out into a different location entirely. 

Now, the pair of them stood rigidly outside the door to the Headmaster's office--which was situated at the top of one of the lush turrets which accented the exterior of the Academy. Wilbur felt his heart murmur as he waited; it had already been a strange day.

_First Schlatt's note, now this...._

Tommy's foot tapped briskly on the floor; his fidgeting was contagious, and soon, Wilbur found this his fingers were twining themselves together, untwining them, anxiety-ridden, feral. He didn't know what they were waiting for; only that when they'd knocked, there had been a deep voice from inside the room that had said, "Wait just one moment."

And so they waited.

Wilbur's hand flitted to the pocket of his uniform, where the note was tucked safely within the lining of his jacket. He wanted to pull it out, to look it over again. He wanted to scrutinize it, to wonder if it really _was_ from Schlatt, or from some dickhead trying to play a cruel prank. 

Beside him, Tommy let out a noise of irritation. The kid wasn't very patient, that was for sure.

_Wilbur, I hope you are well. I'm writing to let you know that while I am not well, I am safe._

The door beside Wilbur opened suddenly, clicking and clanking as the deadbolt unlatched. "Come in," called the voice from beyond--the Headmaster.

Wilbur and Tommy exchanged a nervous glance, before Wilbur gestured and said, "After you, Mr. Legend."

"Are you fucking kidding me, no--you first, Tripwire." Tommy flashed Wilbur a dangerously fierce gaze.

Wilbur sighed--it wasn't worth arguing with a child--and turned to enter the Headmaster's office.

He was immediately greeted with a very peculiar sight.

The office itself, for one, was far more luxurious than he'd originally thought it'd be. The Headmaster was mysterious, but he had never stricken Wilbur as the type to be so _indulgent._ The furniture was plush, the memorabilia scattered around the various shelves probably worth more than Wilbur entirely. He couldn't help but admire it.

At the large desk sat the Headmaster himself, in all his elaborate glory. He offered the pair of boys a warm smile; and sitting before him were two men that made Wilbur's heart perform a deliberate somersault: Philza, one of the Academy's longest, oldest, most-experienced resident hunters, and none other than Technoblade himself, pink hair trailing down one shoulder in a flimsy braid.

Wilbur heard Tommy enter the room behind him, and could practically feel the kid tense up as he drew up next to him. 

There was a long moment of silence, before the Headmaster smiled warmly at them. "Good morning."

His Scottish accent was thick; Wilbur caught traces of blue hiding in the depths of the his hair. It certainly was a peculiar setup, a peculiar encounter. A peculiar morning, indeed, for a peculiar set of souls.

"Well, don't just stand there." The Headmaster frowned theatrically. "Say it back, boys."

"Good morning," Wilbur and Tommy droned at the same time. Wilbur added a lighthearted, "Sir."

The Headmaster beamed, then glanced at Phil and Techno; Phil was smiling warmly at the both of them, a sort of fatherly presence radiating off of him. Techno, however, kept his expression neutral, unreadable. 

"I want to introduce you to two of this Academy's best pupils," the Headmaster said, more towards Phil, and Wilbur felt an unexpected stab of pride at the title. He hadn't been aware he'd been one of the "the Academy's best pupils." He simply thought that swords were old-fashioned, and so his methods tended to be more on the creative side. 

He didn't think that made him _skilled._ Just resourceful, at the very least.

"Wilbur Soot," said the Headmaster, gesturing to him, "is the star of our upper levels. Incredibly smart, according to all his instructors, and.....surprising in his methods. Very impressive work, if you ask me. And....well, you are." 

Wilbur smiled self-consciously, as both Phil's and Techno's gazes shifted to him. He felt horribly vulnerable, but also proud.

"Nice to meet you, Wilbur," said Phil, and he extended his hand.

"Likewise." Wilbur shook it stiffly, feeling a bit like a child.

"And Tommy Innit," continued the Headmaster--and Techno's horribly fearsome gaze shifted to the poor kid--, "is our lower levels star. Here we have a wonderful show of skill--almost at your level, Techno. I've seen him work a sword. It's quite impressive." 

Wilbur could practically feel Tommy's cheeks glowing. 

Phil extended his hand to Tommy; and as Tommy shook it, he looked to the Headmaster, and said, "If you don't mind me asking, sir, why are we here?"

Wilbur fully expected Tommy to get put in his place for his insolence, but to his surprise, Techno shifted in his seat, and added, "I'd like to know too, sir."

"I'm getting to that, if you'd let me." The Headmaster regarded the four of them with an unreadable expression. Wilbur felt a small pang of anxiety resonate within him. They were an odd grouping, he thought: one of them, a kid he'd met a mere thirty minutes ago; one of them, a veteran who had been at the Academy for God knew how long, and killed God knew how many dangerous beasts; one a seasoned, trained, merciless killer worthy of poetry; and the other, and himself, a person who he didn't entirely know yet. 

_You don't belong here, Wilbur._

Oh, but the Headmaster seemed to think otherwise.

"I'm compiling a team in order to complete more long-term missions," said the Headmaster, cutting right to the chase, folding his hands over themselves. "It's a work in progress, this plan of mine, but I figured I'd start with a small, intimate experiment with my best candidates." He gestured to them. "And that would be you four."

"What do you mean by 'team'?" asked Wilbur, glancing uneasily at Tommy. 

Tommy, offended, furrowed his brow right back at him. "Why'd you look at me?"

The Headmaster ignored both of them, and said to Phil, "You'll act as a sort of leader, since you've got the most experience. I'll be briefing you with information about your missions, and you'll delegate it to your team members." 

Phil nodded obediently. "Yes, sir."

"You'll be given a wing of your own, of course," the Headmaster continued, looking back to all of them, as matter-of-factly as if he were relaying the weather. "And you'll be training together. Techno, I assume that you'll be giving out some handy tricks to your new teammates."

Techno didn't react, only bounced his knee impatiently. Wilbur wrung his hands, feeling a peculiar weight of anxiety settle on his chest. What was he going to do, living with these people? 

"When will we start?" said Tommy, ever eager.

"Immediately." The Headmaster beamed at him. "You'll move into your new wing tonight."

"Tonight?" Wilbur let the word burst out of him before he could stop it. He didn't mean for it to sound abrupt; but, apparently, it dripped with offense, for the Headmaster flashed him a strange look.

"Is that a problem for you, Mr. Soot?" The Headmaster's brow twitched in a seemingly unspoken warning.

Wilbur stood down. "No, sir."

_You don't belong with these so-called heroes, man. You belong somewhere better._

Without realizing it, he glanced at Tommy, who had his gaze trained intensely on the Headmaster. The kid seemed to be processing this bucket of news on his own. 

Techno grunted, shifted himself in his seat, and said, "So we're just....you know. A single unit. No more individual stunts or achievements. Just....group." 

He did not hide his disdain for the idea.

And honestly, Wilbur didn't blame him. He was far happier in his own company, training how he liked, earning achievements his own way. He didn't exactly want to give that up to three other Hunters, no matter how skilled or renowned. 

"I think we could make it work," said Phil, and Wilbur could hear that desperation to be the peacemaker, that calm lodged firmly in the tone of his voice as he held up a hand to Techno in a subtle, _settle down_ gesture.

"You'd better." The Headmaster smiled almost threateningly, laying on his Scottish accent thick. "Because I have great faith in the four of you. Please do not let this experiment fail."

Phil, Wilbur, and Tommy all mumbled different variations of "yes, sir." Techno said nothing, gaze trained solidly on the floor.

Wilbur sighed. This was going to be strange.

\----------------

 _TWO YEARS LATER_ _ NOW _

"Was he there?"

Wilbur gave Phil a grim shake of his head; Phil let out a loose breath, and let a hand fly up to his forehead as he began to pace the length of the house's small kitchen. Techno sat pensively at the table, watching the both of them with a furrowed brow. 

"They said they didn't see him, at least." Wilbur shrugged, shoved his hands into his pockets. His gut rumbled with the beginnings of worry, but not much; Phil was likely to do all the worrying for them, especially since Tommy was the matter at hand. 

"Shit." Phil bit his lip, glanced quickly between Techno and Wilbur, who both simply fixed him with blanket stares. "Well? Did he say anything to the two of you?"

"Not to me," Techno said, throwing up his hands in surrender. "He was gone when I got up this morning."

"When was that?"

Techno shrugged, considering. "Maybe around six? I went downtown to scout out a few things."

Wilbur's eyebrows shot upward, and he crossed his arms. "You went downtown? Already?"

"What can I say? I'm efficient." Techno shot him a sly grin that suggested that there was something deeper to the term "scouting out". There was always something deeper with Techno.

"Did you see him, Wil?" Phil turned to him, eyes wide, almost exasperated.

"I didn't--" But then he stopped. Because he had seen Tommy. The night before, when he'd been tucked between the folds of sleeping and wakefulness. Tommy sneaking out the door. Wilbur tossing him his jacket, warning him of the cold. 

"He left last night." Wilbur glanced at Techno, for some reason feeling like an irresponsible child under Phil's stern gaze. "Tried to sneak out, but I caught him. I gave him my jacket."

"You just let him _leave?_ " Phil said, incredulously.

Wilbur shrugged, feeling a strange pang of guilt split his gut. "I mean, I--he's sixteen, Phil, and a Hunter, for Christ's sake. My mistake if I thought he could handle himself."

"Well, apparently he couldn't." Phil sighed, and resumed his pacing, his hand scraping itself across his scalp in an irritated, harried fashion.

Techno said, "He could just be exploring."

"He's restless," Wilbur agreed, pointing to Techno gratefully. "He could just be exploring, Phil."

"Who even is this Tubbo fellow?" Techno put his cheek in his chin and furrowed his brow. "He's just kind of appeared, hasn't he?" 

"Right." Not seeming to hear him, Phil let his hands drop to his sides, a new resolve settling over his features. He looked between the two boys, arms crossed over his chest. "We're gonna look for him, yeah? I'll get in the car with Techno, and Wil, you can walk."

Wilbur's brow furrowed, and he started forward defensively. "Wait-you--why am I _walking?_ "

"Because you let him out of the house last night."

At this, Techno snickered.

"Oh, you bastard." Wilbur shot Techno a poisonous expression, then looked back to Phil, threw his hands up in surrender. "Fine. I'll walk." 

Briskly, he started toward the front door, indignantly pulling his beanie down. Over his shoulder, he called, "Just so you know, it's _nice_ outside, so I really don't mind, you know!"

"Good to hear!" Phil replied, but Wilbur was back outside, the fresh air washing over him and flushing his skin with the full effect of autumn in the mountains. He started down the street, his boots clomping fervently on the sidewalk. He passed the neighbor's house-- _warm scent of vanilla and herbs, a strange mixture of objects in the background, too cluttered for someone who has just moved in_ \--and considered, for a moment, stopping by once more, just to simply smell that sweet scent again. It was intoxicating.

And while he was looking at the house--not longing, at least, he didn't think he was looking at it longingly--he nearly ran right into the man before him on the sidewalk.

"Oh, shit." Wilbur stumbled, throwing his hands forward and dodging, his momentum carrying him off to the side with embarrassing velocity. His cheeks flushed red; he ducked his head, and mumbled, "Shit, I'm so sorry, I'm...."

"It's alright." 

Wilbur glanced up; the voice was deep, practically rich in its bass. The man was only just shorter than him--and Wilbur was _tall_ \--with a dark shock of curly brown hair. Next to him stood another man, thin with lighter hair, and....

The girl.

The girl in the doorway. 

His heart quivered in an odd, dismayed sort of way. There was something about her that gave him the creeps--no, not the creeps, something far more sophisticated and primal. She set off his Hunter's intuition almost alarmingly. It was something about the way she looked at him, as if she'd seen him before. As if he was someone she already knew.

_Like she was seeing his ghost._

It was an intrusive thought that didn't make all that much sense, and so he shook it off, and said, "I'll just....I'm looking for...."

He stopped. Gave up. The words were already jumbled. There was no use trying to right them.

The man before him laughed, a rich sound that Wilbur seemed to feel in his chest. "I said you're alright. We're looking for him too, I suppose?" He grinned. "Your brother?"

Gratefully, Wilbur nodded. Carefully, he said, quite lamely, "Tommy."

The man smiled. "Yeah, Tommy." He extended his hand. "I'm Eret."

Wilbur grasped it--it was quite a cold hand, he thought uselessly--and shook it firmly, grateful for the humanity. 

Behind Eret, the other man said, "I'm Fundy."

"And you've met me," said the girl, and smiled-- _Niki,_ that was her name. Niki.

Wilbur sighed--tried to shake the queer feeling that had overcome him--and wiped his hands on his jeans. "So I guess we're in the same boat, huh."

"I guess so." Eret and Fundy shared a glance; Niki shook her head, crossed her arms.

"I just don't know why he'd run off," she said, very quietly. 

"Tommy's not the type to just disappear, either," agreed Wilbur. Behind him, in the driveway of his own house, the sound of Phil and Techno climbing into Phil's rental sounded down the street--the slamming of car doors gracing all of their ears quite easily. Turning, Wilbur tried to catch Phil's eye, but Phil--who was prone to get caught up in his worry--didn't see him. 

Wilbur turned back to Eret and the rest, an idea taking root in his head. "That's Phil and Techno. They insisted on taking the car to look."

"And they made you _walk_?" Fundy said, incredulously, but there was a smirk playing at his lips.

Gladly, Wilbur returned the small smile, a peculiar feeling of comfort washing over him. He didn't consider himself sociable--after all, for the past two years the only social interaction he'd indulged himself with had been with Phil, Techno, Tommy, and the occasional old Academy acquaintence--but this group felt simple enough. The way they moved their mouths, wiggled their eyebrows at each other; their words, their little expressions of affection. It was all intriguing, but familiar. 

It felt a bit like how Wilbur would always let Tommy eat his mashed potatoes because they were Tommy's favorite; how Techno and Wilbur would stargaze on the Academy roof when the nights were clear and they had nothing to do the next day; how Phil would always hold open Academy doors for the rest of them, no matter what they were doing; how Wilbur used to give them little concerts on Friday nights with his guitar, how Tommy would record them and download them onto discs, how Techno would take Tommy's sword and guide him when he his moves were a little dodgy, how Phil's expansive knowledge and experience aided them all. 

How Wilbur and Schlatt used to stay up all night in their dorm and pass their words between them like playing cards, eyes aglow in the light of Schlatt's lantern. 

"Do we wanna team up?" said Eret, his eyebrows poised, and he gestured to the car. The question had been directed at Wilbur, but Wilbur's mind had been thrown again, tossed into a different plane of existence. 

_He hadn't thought about Schlatt in years._

"It'd be more efficient," said Fundy, and stepped forward, shoving his hands into his pockets, looking to Wilbur curiously. "What do you say, new guy?"

Wilbur had to yank himself back to the present, away from the flickering of Schlatt's lantern and the feeling of the tripwire against his fingers, burning like an open flame. "Yeah," he said, a little unclear on what he was agreeing to, but agreeing nonetheless. 

As if summoned, Phil's car pulled up on the curb next to the small group, coming to a crumbling halt on the asphalt; Techno rolled down the passenger window, and Phil leaned across, peering at Wilbur--or, rather, Wilbur's peculiar company--curiously. 

"Hey, Phil," Wilbur said, and he used the sound of his own voice to draw himself to the matter at hand ( _Tommy is missing and we have to find him, Tommy is missing in a foreign town and we have to find him_ ). He approached Techno's window and leaned in. "These are the neighbors. They're missing a small, teenage boy of their own."

"Oh." Phil's eyebrows shot upward; Techno scooted away from Wilbur and peered cautiously over his shoulder at Eret. "What a coincidence."

There was a pint of skepticism glimmering in Phil's tone, but he smiled anyway, as Eret approached the car window beside Wilbur.

"Name's Eret," he said, then gestured behind him. "Fundy, Niki. I believe we're in quite a similar predicament?"

Techno flashed him a sadistic-looking grin--or, perhaps it was one of Techno's normal grins, dressed up in all its sadistic glory. "It appears we are, aren't we."

Phil tapped the side of the steering wheel, seeming to consider something, then gestured to Eret. "Why don't you hop in the backseat?"

Eret's eyebrows shot upward; the ornately composed aura he'd given off before vanished completely under Phil's determination. "Me?"

"Yes, you." But Phil's tone was kind, as it normally was, and he gestured into the backseat. "You can help us look from the car."

Eret smirked. "You're not kidnapping me, are you?"

"Just get in," said Techno, who was never one for bullshit.

"So you're _still_ making me walk," said Wilbur, shooting Phil a distinct, venomous glare.

Pleasantly, Phil said, "Yep."

Wilbur flipped him the bird, then backed away from the window, allowing Eret to move past him and climb into the rental's backseat. Through the window, Phil continued, "We'll head to the far side of town--why don't the three of you take the neighborhoods?"

Wilbur nodded dutifully, if not begrudgingly. Resigned, he said, "Sounds good."

The queer feeling that had settled in his gut seemed to intensify, however, as he stepped farther away from the car. Farther toward Niki and Fundy, his new company, search party for Tommy. It began to spread into a numbness that began at his feet and slowly began to climb upward, his legs tingling with invisible vines slithering across his skin.

_Uh-oh._

"Jesus, it's like we're FBI agents," said Fundy, and nudged Niki playfully. The car with Phil, Techno, and Eret drove off, down the road, with a final call from Eret, his head thrown out the window like a dog. 

The numbing cold had reached his fingertips, his abdomen. It was coming, and there was no stopping it. 

_It's happening again._

_It's been years._

_But it's happening again._

Wilbur swayed. 

He caught Niki's eye before he went down, all shimmery and warm. But they were knowing eyes, and he didn't like them. 

Without much preamble, he collapsed onto the concrete with a final groan, and his mind slipped away fretfully.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a general note--if you ship any of these people irl, you are weird and honestly I don't want you consuming my work! /lh but /srs :)
> 
> Also, I hope you all caught Scott Smajor in the last chapter, "making the teams." Fun little reference I thought I'd add. Enjoy :)

_ BEFORE _

Tubbo's world had tilted itself strangely.

He and Eret had settled into a strange little rhythm; they lived their normal lives during the day--Eret in university, Tubbo in school--and they fed at night, under the protective cloak of the populous city. It was something Tubbo had always longed for, this way his new world had of tilting itself; he'd always yearned for something out of the ordinary, some secret he could hold close to his chest and wave away people who asked. It felt as if something within him had finally shifted into place, and that with this new version of himself, he could finally feel like he was doing more than just existing.

Of course, Eret was a little less enthusiastic about the whole vampire thing. Tubbo didn't quite understand why; enhanced hearing? sped up healing? Surely he found excitement in _some_ of these things. 

Sure, the blood thing was a little gross, even Tubbo could admit. But to him, it was a small price to pay for invincibility. He could throw himself off the top of a building and walk away perfectly unharmed.

And the fangs made him look less like a child, more like something that should be not quite feared, but _respected_. He was fond of the way they made him look.

How cool was _that_?

The problem was--and this was the only fault Tubbo seemed to be able to find in this newfound life of his--that it was, no matter which way you looked at it, quite lonely.

Eret, of course, didn't count; their bond as brothers was as stable as steel. But Eret tended to reside within himself, often leaving Tubbo alone, curled on the couch, with the TV flickering South Park before him. And when South Park didn't suffice, Tubbo found himself wandering through the obscurities of the city, finding ways in which he could entertain himself. Once, he stole three candy bars from a drug store on a corner street, simply for the notion that theft was fun (he didn't get very far, though, without feeling bad about it; he'd sulked back into the drug store and plopped the candy bars back onto the counter before scurrying back out again, cheeks flushed with shame). 

He didn't make a very good vampire, either, it seemed. He didn't like feeding, not one bit, and had to rely on Eret to _prepare_ his meals for him.

"Why do we have to kill them?" he'd asked Eret once, as the pair of them stood over the bodies of a family of raccoons they'd discovered in an alleyway. "Why can't we just take some blood and leave them alive?"

He'd really believed it to be a good idea. He didn't like killing animals. It made him sad.

But Eret had shaken his head, clucked his tongue. "And leave them to suffer? No, I think killing them is the only merciful option."

_Besides just leaving them be_ , Tubbo thought, but of course, that wasn't even an option. They had to eat. Sacrifices had to be made.

And they wouldn't kill people. That was beyond the question.

Now, Tubbo traipsed through the city, evening shedding its final light on the world like a dog shedding its fur; the skyscrapers glinted with gold, piercing Tubbo's eyes as he walked. He ducked the sunlight easily, keeping his eyes trained on the sidewalk beneath his feet. While the myth about vampires not being able to endure sunlight had proven to be false, it was still bright as shit out here. 

He was headed nowhere, on one of his boredom-induced wanders. He didn't quite know where he was going, but that was okay. His feet liked the sidewalk; his legs--while rather short--were happy to carry him wherever he pleased. Eret was asleep up in the apartment, taking a break from university work; which meant Tubbo could do whatever he pleased.

His stomach grumbled, but he deftly ignored it; he would wait until later that night with Eret to eat. 

Like always.

And so he walked, dodging crowds who were surging back to their apartments for the end of the day, from restaurants and jobs and odder sorts of whereabouts; Tubbo dodged them all, keeping his eye on the shops he passed, searching for something that he could use to pass the time. 

His eye snagged on a peculiar-looking coffee shop.

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, letting his eyes wander up and down the side of the shop; the name overhead had faded so that he couldn't read it, and the windows were tinted with grime, in desperate need of a wash. But it was charming, and--better yet--looked sort of interesting.

So Tubbo nudged open the door and entered.

The smell of ground coffee and mocha swirled into his nostrils and he inhaled it deeply; this sort of smell was one that made his insides feel fuzzy, warm and almost human again. It reminded him of days when he was younger, when Eret would drag him into coffee shops like this one so that he could focus on homework. Tubbo would sit with him for hours and play with the foams of cream at the top of his lattes, which would always be left un-drunk.

Tubbo approached the counter dutifully and ordered himself a caramel latte, iced, because hot coffee never seemed to taste correct. As he waited for the barista to concoct his order, he stood at the side of the shop, and surveyed the people in it.

Because it was evening, the shop's few inhabitants were all packing their laptops into messenger backs, finishing up their styrofoam cups and tossing them into the trash cans, preparing to go home for the day. Tubbo watched them all with a close eye, wondering what sort of lives they were preparing to return to. 

He was so caught up in these thoughts, however, that when he heard his name get called for him to retrieve his coffee, he spun and whirled right into the body of a girl.

"Oh!" He scampered backward, immediately flushing with embarrassment. The collision had been rough; she'd been clutching a backpack, the zipper had been dangling, open, and now the contents of the bag were strewn all over the floor between them. Tubbo looked down at the items that had fallen onto the wooden floor; they were an odd assortment of things, and Tubbo wasn't entirely certain what he was looking at--vials and herbs and--

The skin of his forearm began to scream, a burning sensation crawling up it rapidly, singing him with pain. 

He resisted the urge to cry out, merely grasped it and held it to him as he gazed with wide eyes at the girl, who had dropped to her knees and was quickly trying to gather her odd belongings. He spotted an open vial that had been knocked loose in the collision; its contents contained small knots of garlic. 

_Oh, fuck._

Quickly, tucking his arm into the sleeve of the jacket he had so briskly removed when entering the coffee shop, he approached the counter and grabbed his coffee. But he was no longer thinking about his caffeine, no; he was focused on not allowing tears of pain to coerce his cheeks, focused on trying not to let the girl know that her regular old garlic was eating away at the skin on his arm. He had to get home to Eret. Eret would know what to do. Eret would--

The girl reached up and grasped his other, unscathed arm. He froze. 

"I can help you with that burn," she said, very quietly, and he looked at her, eyes wide. His heart beat wildly; she had short black hair, and had dyed the front two strips blonde. Her eyes were a warm, brownish color, as she gazed up at him not with malice, but with kindness.

His mind screamed, _oh god, she's a Hunter. She's going to lure me somewhere and kill me._

But she didn't look like a Hunter. She looked far too kind for something of that nature.

She must've sensed the rigid fear in him, because she gestured forward, toward a table near the window where another boy sat, typing away at a laptop, hood pulled over his scruffy brown hair. "Here. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not a...." She winked, and he knew. "I want to help you."

"Do you know--"

"I know what you are." She stood, slowly, and led him over to their table. It was hard for him to keep calm, while his skin writhed in agony. He could feel tears beginning to bubble over his lids anyway, as the pain slowly overwhelmed him. The shop around him began to spin; the latte began to slip from his fingers. He felt it drop, but the girl caught it before it could hit the ground. He would thank her later. For inside his mouth, his fangs had sprouted involuntarily, and it was taking everything in him to bite back a hiss. 

The boy with the scruffy hair eyed him curiously, then furrowed his brow in the girl's direction. "Niki, what--"

Dumping her backpack onto the table, the girl rifled through it and brought out an opaque, white vial. She twisted off the cap and squirted a drop of cream onto her palm, then reached for Tubbo's arm.

He had to resist the urge to draw backward again. He let her remove his arm from the jacket sleeve, and cringed at the sight of the bubbling, red skin on his forearm. As gently as she could, she dabbed the cream onto the irritated area. 

Almost immediately, he felt a wave of relief wash over his arm, accompanied by a sensation of strange numbness. As the pain left him, he let his fangs retract, and a sigh escaped him. "Thank you," he breathed--he'd had absolutely no idea that garlic was _that bad_ for vampires.

"Sorry about that," said the girl--the other boy had called her Niki. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and looked at him curiously. "Quite strange, wouldn't you say? How that was pure coincidence? That I just happened to have garlic, you just happen to be a little vampire, and you just happened to bump into me, and my garlic just happened to spill?" She giggled. He offered her a reluctant smile, still recovering. 

"I'm Niki," she said, and pulled herself back into her seat, gesturing to the scruffy-haired boy. "This is Fundy."

Fundy grunted in mere acknowledgment. He seemed nice.

Tubbo lifted his hand in greeting. "Tubbo."

Niki flashed him one of the friendliest smiles he thought he'd ever see. "Nice to meet you, Tubbo."

He couldn't help but smile back--but curiosity prickled uncomfortably at the back of his conscience.

Cautiously--as the coffee shop continued to bustle with people leaving around him--he asked, "How did you...know?"

Niki merely shrugged, leaned in, and said, as casually as if she were telling him she played guitar, "I'm a witch."

Relief flooded Tubbo--however, Eret had always cautioned him to be careful. How was he to know that Hunters weren't disguising themselves nowadays?

"Prove it." He said it with as much authority as he could muster, which, quite admittedly, wasn't a lot. 

But Niki seemed to sense it coming, because she spread her palm upward on the table. Beside her, Tubbo's untouched latte began to vibrate, as if an earthquake had begun beneath their feet. It was subtle enough that it didn't draw attention, but unnatural enough that it proved her point.

The rest of Tubbo's suspicions washed away, and were immediately replaced by frantic excitement. He'd finally found _others_. Maybe not vampires, but other monsters, people that understood. People that he could relax into his powers around and not draw out the nets and the Hunters and the guns. 

He let a smile light up his face. "Cool," he breathed, and looked to the scruffy boy--Fundy. "Are you a witch, too?"

Fundy scoffed, and glanced up at Niki, then looked to Tubbo. His cheeks were flushed a strange color of red, like he was hot. "I'm a wolf," he said, quietly. "Glad I'm not a witch, though. Some of those potions smell like _shit_."

Niki slapped his arm playfully. Tubbo was delighted. They were _both_ monsters. And two different kinds!

He wondered if Eret would like them, for a moment--before deciding that he didn't really care. Eret would have to put up with them, because Tubbo was seizing them, claiming them as friends.

"Are you guys free tonight?" he asked, before he could entirely think about how peculiar it must be, for the vampire you'd just gravely wounded to ask if you had plans for the next few hours. 

Niki and Fundy shared a curious glance--Tubbo's gut twisted itself into a knot--before looking back to him, and Niki said, to Tubbo's utter shock, "Why, no, I don't think we do." She grinned. "What do you have in mind, little vampire?"

\--------

_ AFTER _

"So you've never had candy corn." Tubbo frowned, cocked his head in Tommy's direction. Currently, he was perched on a fallen log, fingers digging into the softened, rotting bark, watching as Tommy paced the length of the clearing, whacking at the dirt with a stick he'd picked up about an hour ago. It had been a strange morning; since the curb the night before, the two boys had been practically twined together, their interspersing lives coming to a head as they became entrapped in their conversations, entangled in each other's humor. It was the thing Tubbo had always yearned for--and while Tommy didn't appear to be anything of the supernatural sort, he still possessed that strange quality that seemed to engage the both of them in a tango of camaraderie. 

Until, that is, they'd seen Niki sleepwalking in the woods.

It had been early, and they'd both been startled by the arrival of the sun. Traipsing through Tubbo's backyard, they'd been discussing video games--they'd been discussing games for a while now, for it was common ground. Tommy had stopped in his tracks, taken aback by the sound of the back door slamming open. He jumped quickly, and Tubbo could sense his muscles tensing in a peculiar sort of way--it was an almost _trained_ reaction, the way his arms flew upward, his feet shifted ever so slightly into a readied position. But a normal person wouldn't have noticed such a minuscule thing--a normal person didn't have Tubbo's sharpened senses--and so he hadn't said anything, only, "Oh, shit. I think...."

And Niki had walked out into the night, eyes shifting rapidly beneath her closed eyelids, feet breaking through branches as she made her way forward and disappeared into the woods. 

"What the hell?" Tommy's voice was low, but his eyes never left Niki's retreating form. "Is that--"

"Niki," Tubbo said sadly, and he ran a nervous hand through his hair-- _it was good she wasn't doing anything_ too _out of the ordinary._ "She....she has a sleepwalking problem."

Only she didn't. Not to this extent.

At least, not that she'd said anything about. 

But he shoved down his worry in front of Tommy; he'd simply turned to his new friend and said, "I should probably follow her....make sure she doesn't hurt herself."

"You should," agreed Tommy, to Tubbo's immense relief. "I can....I can wait." 

This took Tubbo by surprise. "You will? I'm not....I mean, you can go home, if you need to like....eat breakfast or something."

But Tommy merely shrugged. "They don't do that kind of thing." He smiled, easily. "I'm having fun here."

And Tubbo was confused, because for him it had always been Eret over everything. Niki, Fundy over everything. He'd never stayed out past curfew because he was having too much fun with someone--he'd never gotten the chance to. It hadn't occurred to him that you could choose your friends over your blood. And it didn't seem that Tommy had a bad home life, either--he talked of his brothers with such a light in his eye, his father as if he were some sort of god--it was simply that, Tommy wanted to remain with Tubbo. 

Because they were having fun.

He followed Niki into the woods with that held closely to him. 

But when he'd gotten back to the house with Niki, Tommy had been nowhere in sight. Disappointment was what should've eaten at Tubbo, but all he felt was.....well, what he felt was a resigned sort of relief. Perhaps Tommy had been nothing but a desperate mirage, a distraction from the nightmares that had plagued Tubbo the night before. 

The nightmares.

The house.

He avoided Eret's eye as he went back inside; his brother would've been able to tell if something was wrong. 

He didn't want to tell Eret that he was having dreams that this house was going to swallow them, that they were all going to die here in cold blood. He didn't want to tell Eret that he had a horrible feeling their immortality was going to be cut short.

Around twenty minutes later, it became clear that Tommy wasn't some sort of wildly dreamt hallucination, for when Tubbo walked back outside to retrieve a coat Eret had left out, here he was again, re-entering the backyard as if it was his own--although, that was how he seemed to walk everywhere, now that Tubbo thought about it. 

"Sorry I ran out on you earlier," Tommy had said, crossing his arms, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his eyes. "It looked.....personal. Um." He cleraed his throat, shrugged. Tubbo felt a smile spread across his lips. _He'd come back._

"You come to convince me that Black Ops 2 is better than Modern Warfare 2?" Tubbo smirked. 

At this, Tommy had tossed his head back, let out a loud, contagious sort of laugh. 

And Tubbo did something he'd never done before: he'd chosen a friend over his brother.

Though he made sure to leave the jacket on the step of the back porch, where Eret could plainly see it. 

Now, they sat in the woods, Tubbo on his log, Tommy pacing around the clearing. The words had all tumbled from their lips, and yet they still fell, still talking, still engrossed in each other's company. They'd managed, however, to skirt around Tommy's childhood as a whole, although Tubbo could tell that it had been quite lonely, like his. All he knew was that Tommy had attended some sort of strange boarding school with his two brothers and that they'd moved to this town for a sort of fresh start, and that was it. 

"I've never had candy corn," Tommy agreed, and plopped himself down into the freshly fallen leaves, eyes trained upward at the crisp, blue sky. "Just wasn't something that seemed worth trying."

"Oh, but you must." Tubbo sat forward, letting the breeze play at his bangs. "It's wonderful, really. And Halloween's coming up. You should be able to find plenty of candy corn in stores now, if you wanted."

"You'll have to try them with me, so you can gauge my reaction," said Tommy. 

"We could carve pumpkins, too, if you like." This, Tubbo tried out with an air of caution; it was a tradition of his and Eret's, and he wasn't sure if Tommy would want to do it.

"I've....I've never done that." Tommy said this like he was considering it. He tossed Tubbo an apologetic grin. "Jesus, I haven't done a lot of things, have I?"

Tubbo chuckled. "I guess you haven't. I'm sure Eret wouldn't mind if you came over this weekend or something and carved pumpkins with us."

Tommy beamed. "I'd love that. I'm sure...." He scrunched his brow in consideration. "I'm sure Techno and Wilbur would like to join, as well."

"I'm excited to meet them." And he was excited to meet Tommy's brothers, who were as mysterious as Tommy's past. 

But something flashed behind Tommy's eyes--something so small and minuscule, that if Tubbo had been just a normal boy, an unobservant human being, he would've missed it.

But of course, Tubbo wasn't any of those things.

And it was strange, as the day wore on; Tubbo was beginning to hear Tommy's heartbeat inside of his chest, pumping his blood all through his tall frame. It wasn't a problem yet--Tubbo rarely caught the urge to drink human blood, anyway, not when he had to have his older brother kill his animals for him--but it certainly had the potential to become one, if Tubbo's appetite began to take a turn for the worse.

He'd sure hate to take a bit out of his new friend. 

His only friend.

Suddenly, the air within the clearing shifted, whirled itself into a new state of being, almost, like water shifting to mist. There came a noise from behind Tubbo, a sort of rustling amongst the leaves. It made the hair on the back of Tubbo's neck prickle, stand at attention. He glanced at Tommy; the other boy didn't seem to notice anything.

_Okay. So it's a vampire-senses thing. Got it._

Preoccupied with the sky, Tommy remained laying on his back, his long eyelashes fluttering in the wind. Slowly, Tubbo let his gaze flicker from him; he carefully, subtly, turned around.

There was no one behind him.

But that change in the air was still prevalent, and it kissed the skin of his forearms with an alarming ferocity. He felt his stomach flutter with nervousness; something was watching him. 

_But what?_

And suddenly--

There. Faintly. Transparent against the greenery of the woods, so much so that it was nearly impossible to pick up that there was something there--but the more Tubbo focused on it, the more he could see it. The outline of a man, tall and thin, standing near one of the trees. It was as if he were made of the air he inhabited, for he was of no shape, and of solid shape at the same time. Tubbo couldn't make out the clothes he was wearing, only that it was, in fact, a man. 

And he was wearing some sort of beanie. 

That was strange. 

Tubbo narrowed his eyes, confusion battering against the back of his forehead like a hammer. Then, just like that, the man's shape flickered away, like someone had switched him off, snatched him out of the afternoon like a sticker. 

_What the hell?_

"Tubbo?"

He turned back to Tommy, who was now sitting up, watching him with a furrow brow. "What's wrong?" he asked, and the genuine concern in his tone only added to the uneasiness that had settled within his stomach. 

_Why hasn't he told me anything about where he came from?_

Tubbo wasn't sure if it was the paranoia that had come with seeing that strange ghost-man, or if it was suddenly dawning on him that, while Tubbo had relayed basically everything about his life to Tommy (aside from the vampire bit), Tommy had hardly returned the favor. It was strange, suddenly, that Tommy had dropped into his life so conveniently. 

_You're being paranoid. It's nothing. He's probably just had a rough life, remember those nightmares he told you about? Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it._

But Tubbo couldn't shake the feeling that he was being kept cleverly in the dark, that some vital piece of information was being held before his very eyes and he couldn't see it, that the lack of light was blanketing his vision so much so that he remained clueless. 

"Tubbo?" Tommy moved closer, his expression twisted. He crawled over to where Tubbo sat on his log, and looked up at him with a watery, concerned gaze. "Are you okay, mate?"

"I'm fine." Tubbo drew in a breath, and scraped his palms over his forearms, brushing away that awful change in air pressure. "I'm fine," he repeated, and sighed. "We should--"

" _Tubbo!!!_ "

In the distance. Very faintly. Eret's voice, echoing through the trees, reaching them from a distant, unknown location. Somehwere back in town, perhaps.

Then, an unfamiliar, deep voice: " _Tommy!!!!_ "

"Oh, shit." Tommy perked, jumping to his feet. Eyes wide, he glanced at Tubbo, who returned the gaze just as wildly. "Is that your brother?"

"Yeah, it is. Fuck." Tubbo clambered to his feet as well, glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Oh, shit, Tommy--it's nearly four."

"Oh, God." Tommy ran a hand through his hair, pushing it up before it simply flopped back down onto his forehead. "I'm....I'm probably worrying Phil to death." 

"Phil?" Tubbo blinked--he hadn't heard Tommy mention a Phil.

"Er--Dad." Tommy shook his head lightly. "I've been out for ages."

Something moved behind Tubbo, quickly, like it was darting off, scrambling through the leaves to get somewhere. It took everything within Tubbo not to turn around, not to look for the ghost-man. He firmly clamped the fear down and held it within his gut. 

But he also held Tommy's fumble close; _who slips up and calls their own father by their first name?_

"TUBBO, TOMMY, WHERE ARE YOU!!!!"

"We better get back." Tubbo cleared his throat, and started forward, worried that Tommy could see through his falsely thrown facade. "Jesus, I....I can't believe we lost track of time like that."

"Well." Tommy jogged to catch up with Tubbo, and grinned as they crunched through the dead leaves together. "I mean, I didn't hate it."

"Me, neither." At this, Tubbo did smile--for he hadn't hated it.

In fact, it had been one of the best times of his life.


End file.
